Month: January 2008

We haven’t noticed it, but apparently there has been an ongoing problem with gas smells on Grand Street between Berry and Wythe. The Fire Department and Keyspan have been out a couple of times, but have not located anything. Aside from an actual gas leak on the block, there are two possible sources of “the smell”.

First (and most unlikely, I think) is the NYPA power plant at the foot of Grand, next to Grand Ferry Park. When it first opened in 2002 or so we were constantly getting gas smells, particularly in back yards where it would settle. NYFD was down at the plant repeatedly, and whatever it was seemed to have been very small and related to bringing the plan on line. This was also in the summer, on generally windless days, when the gas could settle. Given the cold and windy conditions of late, this seems like an unlikely source.

The second possibility (crazier, but maybe more likely) is the kosher hot dog factory at the corner of Grand & Berry (the wall of it is shown in the foreground on the Gowanus Lounge post linked above). The factory is a constant source of odiferousness (meat processing, spices, etc.), and I noticed it was particularly stinky when I walked by yesterday afternoon. It is not a gas smell, but it is a smell that you don’t smell every day.

UPDATE: So much for theory. Keyspan has spent the evening going up and down Grand Street poking holes in the sidewalk and street, sniffing for gas leaks. They’ve spent the last hour or so digging a hole in the sidewalk in front of 69 Grand (across the street from Aurora). Looks like “actual gas leak” wins (the NYPA pipeline does not run down that far south). 25 January – 22:30.

There seem to be a world of mixed messages on the 475 Kent front.

First off, I’ve heard that all of the grain has been removed the building. This removes the immediate fire hazard, though the question of operable sprinklers still remains. The “City” (not clear which agency, Office of Emergency Management, I think) is now saying that extensive modifications are required before the building can be occupied. For commercial tenants, occupancy can not occur until “all violations” have been corrected. Residential tenants will not be allowed to occupy the building until the owner files to convert the building to residential use.

The violations that need to be corrected for commercial use appear to refer to NYFD and similar violations – life safety issues that prevent the building from being used for its stated purpose (the building currently has a Certificate of Occupancy for commercial use only; it is in a residential zone, but the CO does not allow residential use). Without knowing the nature of these “violations”, its impossible to say how long it might take to correct them.

With regard to residential occupancy, things are not necessarily as bad as they sound at first blush. If the requirement is truly “filing, by owner, for conversion to a residential building status”, that is something that could happen in a matter of days or weeks, as “filing” is very different than getting an actual approval for such a conversion (as in a TCO or CO).

While all of this sounds good, it requires the owner to hire the right professionals, correct violations and make the necessary applications. (As noted yesterday, the tenants appear to be working with the owner to make some repairs.) On the other hand, the City has also announced that tenants will be allowed into the building during certain hours on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. After that, the building will be padlocked and inaccessible (to tenants) indefinitely.

Fred Thompson dropped out of the Republican race for President yesterday afternoon (you’re forgiven if you forgot that he was running in the first place – apparently he forgot too). Hours later, Thompson effectively won the Louisiana caucus (I say “effectively” because there is a fair amount of nuance there, but click the link to hear that).

According to TPM, had he actually been in the race, he would have earned all 47 of Louisiana’s delegates to the Republican Convention. That would have put him in the lead overall, with 55 delegates. As it is, Thompson has four times as many honest-to-goodness real delegates as Rudy Giuliani. Heck, even Ron Paul, the “fringe” candidate has more delegates than Rudy.

On the other hand, this does move Rudy into fifth place.

Via Amy’s NY Notebook – NY Water Taxi has announced that it is suspending its South Brooklyn (Brooklyn Army Terminal) commuter service. Unlike the suspension of the East River service, NYWT is not even portraying this as a seasonal cancellation. This leaves NYWT running one ferry service – from Wall Street to Yonkers and Haverstraw.

By NYWT’s accounting, the South Brooklyn service handled “a few hundred commuters daily” (the service was run on larger boats, not the yellow water taxis you see running up and down the river). By contrast, the Yonkers and Haversrtaw route carries a handful of passengers each way. So what makes a lightly-travelled route profitable for NYWT? Public subsidies – which are carrying all of the costs and also probably providing NYWT’s profit. And in its latest service cancellation press release, NYWT is now blatantly asking for more handouts to put its various Brooklyn routes back in service.

As much as I am a fan of the NYWT, it seems to me that something beyond massive public subsidies are needed. If that’s the only solution, why not just turn the whole operation over to the City and run it as a free (or very cheap) service like the Staten Island Ferry?

More realistically, if Brooklyn commuter ferries are to be viable they need two things beyond public subsidies – more commuters and private subsidies. The first comes with lower fares and more development on or near the waterfront, and that will time. At the moment, Long Island City has the largest concentration of new waterfront development. Williamsburg, on the other hand, really only has Shaeffer Landing. Northside Piers is just now nearing completion of its first phase of development. The Edge is just starting construction. Until Domino is approved and built, those two projects represent the sum of Williamsburg’s waterfront development – perhaps not the critical mass that NYWT would need to start running affordable service. (And meanwhile, nothing is happening on the Greenpoint waterfront.)

The second element – private subsidies – would require that developers and developments along the waterfront pony up some money. It is, after all, in their interest and in the interest of maintaining their property values. All of the waterfront developments, and many of the luxury developments inland, tout the Water Taxi as an amenity. But if this amenity remains as fickle as it has been this year, that is hardly a selling point. Some developments, such as the Edge and Northside Piers, have the advantage of being located near public transportation. Others, such as Shaeffer and Domino (and to a fair extent LIC for downtown commuters) are not. But all of the waterfront developments (as well as developments in Red Hook, DUMBO and Brooklyn Bridge Park) stand to benefit from an affordable and reliable water taxi service. And so far, none of them has (publicly, at least) stepped up to the plate.

Until they do step up, its clear that the future of the NY Water Taxi is as a waterborne limousine service for a dozen or two commuters from upriver. At least until those subsidies expire in April.

In their ongoing series on commuting in NYC, the Times took the L train today (“don’t necessarily believe what you read… the lighted platform signs announcing the minutes until the next train’s arrival have been known to be wrong”). (Previously, they took a ride on the G train (“…like that unwanted drunk uncle everyone has) and the Water Taxi (where people have “an unusually fond attachment to their daily commute…”).

Today’s Times looks back fondly on the cult of personality that was Rudy Giuliani’s City Hall.

As President, Giuliani would embrace all of the worst traits of George W. The difference being that Rudy would bring a new level of competence to the vindictiveness, pettiness and toadying that has become the legacy of the past 7 years.

I know I’ll hear from Phil on this, but NYFD is reporting that Brooklyn has the fastest response times in the City. The average response time in Brooklyn was four minutes and one second, a five second improvement over 2006. As the News notes, these improvements come after three years of increased response times following the closing of Engine 212 and two other Brooklyn houses. Prior to the closing of these houses, response times in Brooklyn were three minutes and 51 seconds.

The response time measures how long it takes the first fire department vehicle to appear on scene. It doesn’t measure how quickly the NYFD starts putting out the fire.

Yurly Vanchytsky, the concrete worker who died last week at Trump’s Soho Tower, was a resident of Greenpoint.

OK, its a little early notice, but mark your calendars.

Some thoughts on the eviction of hundreds of tenants from 475 Kent (covered extensively elsewhere, see below). First, this is a building I know fairly well. I know (or knew) at least two of the master lease holders, and know (or knew) about half a dozen other tenants. Coincidentally, I rang in the new millennium from the penthouse of 475 Kent; just over a year and a half later, I watched tower 1 of the World Trade Center come down while standing on the roof of 475.

The floors and apartments I have seen in the building were not fire traps. They were, by and large, professionally constructed and divided into reasonable live/work spaces. In other words, they were not a rabbit warren of jerry built cubicles, nor were they large loft spaces shared by multiple tenants. Most of the tenants I know (knew) are working artists, actually living and working in the building. (And most of them are older artists, not what one would term “hipsters” – which should be beside the point, but apparently isn’t to some.)

That said, I don’t know if the building is up to code. And I do believe that some of the violations cited by the Fire Department are very serious. In particular, the lack of a working sprinkler system and the operation of a unlicensed bakery in the basement. The lack of sprinklers is a pretty obvious defect, particularly in a commercial building that has working artists. The bakery has a lot of people scratching their heads, but the key phrase in the articles is “grain silo” – it is reported that there were two grain silos, 10 feet in diameter and 15 feet hight. So a) this was not some small matzo operation, and b) the operators of the bakery were storing a lot of potentially very flammable material. Grain (or any other fine powder1) can spontaneously combust, either as a result of improper storage within the silos, or as a result of proximity of the fine dust to open flames (such as the coal and gas ovens on premises):

Grain dust is an extremely volatile substance that can explode without warning. One such explosion occurred in 1913 at the Husted Mill and Elevator. The explosion killed 33 people and injured 80 others. Exact causes of fires and explosions were very difficult to determine. Sparks from electrical equipment were blamed, so was static electricity built up on moving belts. Overheating or badly aligned machinery caused fires and there was always the problem of careless smoking. [Buffalo History Works]

There are reports that tenants in the building offered to remove the offending grain from the basement of 475 and volunteered to set up an around-the-clock fire watch. Not ideal, but given that the temperature last night was in the low teens, some accommodation should have been found. Longer term, the solution seems pretty straightforward – eliminate the major violations by getting rid of the bakery and repairing the sprinkler system. Then allow the tenants to return to the building while the less perilous issues are addressed. It appears that a number of the tenants and master lease holders are trying to do just that.

Finally, with regard to the motives for the eviction, on the face of it, this doesn’t look like an effort on the part of the building owner to clear the building. I don’t base this on any particular facts or knowledge, but note that in addition to a host of “illegal” residents, the bakery and a school and catering hall were also shut down (the latter two were in an adjacent building). So if the owner, Nachman Brach, did drop the dime on himself, he probably got more than he bargained for, and has lost his bakery in the process. (On the other hand, there is apparently a court case in the works that could give the existing tenants “rent-controlled” status.) Also arguing against the owner’s hand in this eviction is the fact that Brach is also the owner of 146 Leonard Street, the illegal loft where firefighter Daniel Pujdak died while fighting a fire in the building – so clearly NYFD had reason to closely inspect his buildings.

Bottom line: hopefully the tenants can return to their homes and places of work soon.

Some links –

Tuesday:
…An Uncertain Future [Times]
Residents of Brooklyn Loft Evicted for Fire Code Violations [amNY]
A First-Person Account of an Eviction [amNY]
A Holdout Stays in Brooklyn Loft [Metro]

Monday:
475 Kent Avenue Evacuated [Gothamist]
Dispatches From the Frigid Mass Eviction… [Gowanus Lounge]
City Evacuates 11-Story Building in Brooklyn [Times]
Illegal School, Matzo Factory Shut [Daily News]
Matzo Bawl at Building [Post]
Dear Senator Connor… [Albany Project]

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1. This type of spontaneous combustion was also common in sugar refineries, and is believed to have been the cause of the fire that destroyed the original Domino refinery in 1882.↩