Wall collapse between 331 and 335 Grand Street (Havemeyer and Marcy), leads to evacuation of three buildings. It sounds as though the party wall failed or was compromised between 331 (a three-story building dating to the 1830s or 1840s) and 335 (a four-story building dating to the 1850s).
Partial Wall Collapse Leads to Evacuations in 3 Buildings in Brooklyn
Luxury Williamsburg Apartment Building Turns Out To Be Death-Trap
Started in one real estate boom by a sketchy developer, stalled and vacant for many years, and finished quickly during the current real estate boom. Shockingly, it turns out that the construction may be shoddy and structurally unsound.
Interestingly, this property has a checkered development history that goes back to the 1880s.
Airbnb Advocates for Dwelling law Amendments
New York’s multiple dwelling law, which serves to make short-term rentals in large buildings illegal, was tightened in 2011 to curb the spread of illegal hotels in the city. Instead, it’s led to users of Airbnb being slapped with violations by city authorities for hosting strangers in their homes for short periods.
Interesting use of the word “instead”.
City’s Law Tracking Energy Use Yields Some Surprises
The City’s program to track energy use in large commercial buildings has some interesting results. Some new LEED buildings aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. In a city where buildings use far more energy than cars, and 2% of the buildings account for 45% of that energy expenditure, this stuff matters.
On the other hand, two venerated show horses from the 1930s, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, sailed to an [Energy Star rating of] 84 and an 80 as a result of extensive upgrades of their insulation and mechanical systems.
By comparison, Lever House, a 1954 International Style glass tower, scored a 20. Keeping in mind that none of these buildings were built with energy efficiency in mind, it makes sense that a wall that is more than 50% masonry (as at Chrysler and ESB) will have better thermal properties than a wall of glass. (Lever House’s curtain wall was replaced within the past 10 or 15 years, so it is a somewhat apt comparison to the recently upgraded ESB – Seagram, which retains its original 1958 glass-and-metal facade, scored a 3!)
Rethinking Building Code, Post Sandy
11/24/2012 |
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From the Times, some opening thoughts on revamping the building code in a post-hurricane city. The focus for now is on how to build better in a rising-sea level world, versus just not building in Zone A at all (as a rather silly recent “resolution” from Community Board 1 wants).
As the Times notes, some projects have already gone beyond the current City code requirements for construction in a flood plain, and at least one of those (a recycling plant in Sunset Park) avoided flooding during Sandy as a result. Locally, the new development on the Williamsburg waterfront has also fared comparatively very well. While the flooding on this side of the river seems to have been less severe than it was just across the river, there was flooding. But Schaefer’s Landing, 184 Kent, Northside Piers and the Edge all came through the storm much better than a lot of other newer developments. Unlike many high-rises in lower Manhattan that remain unoccupiable and will be so for months, the systems in the Williamsburg developments survived and the buildings were occupiable pretty much as soon as the evacuation orders were lifted. I know at least one of our waterfront buildings took on a substantial amount of water during the storm surge, but had storm-surge mitigation mechanisms in place that worked, thus avoiding major damage within the building.
Are there lessons to be learned from the local experience, or were we just lucky? (Some of both, I suspect.)