By Gus Saltonstall
The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) shut down an Upper West Side parking garage at the end of last week due to “extensive unsafe conditions,” which has left people unable to get their cars.
A full vacate order was issued by the DOB on Friday, November 3, for the Friedland Garage at 214-216 West 80th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam avenues, a spokesperson from the city agency told West Side Rag.
Specifically, DOB inspectors found “cracked concrete at steel beam encasements and substantially deteriorated concrete slabs with exposed reinforcement” on all six levels of the garage, including in the basement, the spokesperson told the Rag.
Inspectors from the city agency told the owners of the garage that they need to fix the unsafe conditions and to remove all of the vehicles from the premises.
Friedland Garage did not respond to a call from the Rag, but the garage did send out a notice to customers about the closure.
“Thank you for your continued patronage and for being a valued customers. Your monthly parking garage has been shut down by the city. With this in mind, if your vehicle is at the garage, we will let you know when to come and remove it. We will help you find an alternative garage until Friedland Garage opens back up. For any vehicles not currently in the garage, you can park it at 165 West 65th Street temporarily.
We will keep everyone informed on when you can return your vehicles to Friedland Garage. We appreciate your understanding and apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.”
Multiple customers of the garage wrote to the Rag stating that either they or somebody they knew had not been able to get their cars out of the now-shuttered garage, despite the email saying to come pick up vehicles.
One unlucky person had driven into the city for lunch on Saturday, parked their car within the Upper West Side garage at 11:30 a.m., only to return at 3:30 p.m. to find the garage shuttered with a summons note on the door, according to one tipster. The driver had not been able to get their car back as of Sunday night.
A vacate notice from the DOB is posted on the front of the garage that reads: “The Department of Buildings has determined that conditions within this premises, are imminently perilous to life.”
The DOB spokesperson told the Rag that it is the building owner’s responsibility to coordinate the removal of the cars.
The order to vacate the Upper West Side parking garage comes seven months after a garage collapsed near City Hall in April, resulting in the death of one person. The garage at 57 Ann Street was due an inspection, and the fatal incident shined a light on the fact that the city’s parking garages had been exempt from routine inspection requirements until 2022.
Shortly after the deadly collapse, the city shut down four other parking garages due to unsafe conditions.
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I used to park at the garage on W89th that was featured in a NY Times story a few months ago about falling down garages. The owner used to complain all the time that the building was falling apart because of road salt that fell off the cars in the winter and eroded the concrete floors. I’m sure he wouldn’t say that to the DOB inspector though.
There needs to be an investigation of the DOB. I doubt these violations appeared overnight. They’ve been there before. Someone at DOB got paid to overlook them. Now that there was that horrible accident at the other parking garage, they can no longer accept these “gifts.” There is so much corruption in this city. This is low hanging fruit.
There is doubtless corruption in city government but there’s also real underfunding of regulatory agencies. No one wants to pay for it until people start getting killed.
They don’t happen over night but the DOB likely has had their rear to the fire because of the garage collapse downtown earlier this year. Probably just actually doing their jobs now that the spotlight is on.
Manhattan DOB inspectors tend to be more easygoing and accommodating than other boroughs. The harshest DOB inspectors tend to be in Queens.
The urbanists must be happy.
I’ll be very happy once the garage is demolished & turned into housing. Fingers crossed!
I hope they just build a new garage or fix the problems in this garage for people in our neighborhood to park their cars.
I guess you do not own a car & that’s why makes you very happy?
It doesn’t pay to build a garage unless it’s part of the same complex of a new resident building.
But, then you have to live there!!
All the more reason the garage should be fixed & safe for cars & people who work & park there.
Its pretty straight forward – new apartments allow more people to live here, support local businesses and pay more in property/income taxes that support our teachers and police and new apartment supply puts downward pressure on rents. New parking garages encourages more people to drive and we have to suffer the externalities of pollution/noise and pedestrian deaths/injuries from car accidents.
So the people who live in the neighborhood who park at this garage will just give up their cars? I know you will be happy but they will not.
Again you seem a little selfish.? People should have the right to park in this garage once it is fixed & safe.
If you built all the housing you could possibly build on the UWS, what will end up occurring is everyone in gentrified outer borough neighborhoods or gentrifiers in Harlem or Washington Heights will flee these neighborhoods en masse for the UWS and there will again be underinvestment in other neighborhoods. New apartment supply on the UWS won’t put downward pressure on rents because every single white person living above 96th Street aspires to live on the UWS or somewhere in Manhattan below 96th Street.
more bldgs more people!
Too many people in Manhattan now
If the garage is “demolished”, won’t it turn into rubble? Do you really want people living in rubble?
Urbanists want area workers like myself living in roach infested sub basements on the UWS or dealing with taking a bus and two or three trains to get to work on the UWS.
“Urbanists” like myself support greater density and more housing stock that would replace substandard dwellings, expand supply, improve affordability and obviate the need for lengthy commutes.
If you work here on the UWS but have found somewhere else to live that’s cheaper, great and good for you, but the city doesn’t owe you the perpetual benefit of this geographic arbitrage.
The city not owing people the perpetual benefit of this “geographic arbitrage” can be politically dangerous game. Want to have all the UWS cops, firemen, EMT’s, bus drivers, garbage men, doormen etc. all live on the UWS and pay them to do so? That’s one way to shift the electorate to the right and it will be harder for liberals or progressives to win on the UWS. The reality on the ground on the UWS is that even if more housing is built, it still won’t be affordable enough as the overwhelming majority of white Manhattanites north of 96th Street want to move to the UWS or somewhere south of 96th Street. Every white gentrifier in Bushwick, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights is angling for Manhattan including the UWS. There are more people in this metropolitan area from non gentrifying areas than there are gentrifiers, you don’t want to play this game politically.
class action lawsuit, anyone?
LOL!
No lunch in the city is worth this agita.
You can’t trust anybody !
Zabars owns garage building
That garage that Zabar’s owns at West 80th St. is coming down.. zabar’s also sold the property across the street from them between 80th St. and 79Th St., up to the church and that will be a resident building like the new one across the street on 80th St.
As reported in the WSR, Zabars has been fighting very hard not to sell that building. They were even sued by the co-owner, Friedland, who has been playing hardball to force the sale.
https://www.westsiderag.com/2023/07/31/two-families-battle-for-the-future-of-a-broadway-building-and-the-neighborhood
Note that the garage in this article is called the “Friedland Garage”. I wonder what the relationship is between Zabars and Friedland as far as this garage. The citation for failing to obey a vacate order and requirement for a court appearance (that was originally posted on the garage) was addressed to LLC Larstrand. Does anyone know how they fit in with) all of this?
The lawsuit involves a different building.
Correct – a different building.
But if this one is also co-owned by Zabars + Friedland, then there might be similar politics going on behind the scenes. That’s what we need to know.
ACRIS records for 214 W 80th do in fact suggest that Zabar’s — or at least an LLC associated with Zabar’s — is the owner of this parking lot building. What a mess. https://a836-acris.nyc.gov/DS/DocumentSearch/DocumentImageView?doc_id=2016110300922002
If anyone else but the Zabar family owned this garage it would have long since been torn down and property redeveloped. Scores of garages and parking lots all over not just Manhattan but outer boroughs have met that fate.
Happily or not (depending upon which side of fence one sits) because famously anti-development Zabar family owns this garage it will likely remain what it is for foreseeable future.
214 W. 80th St. Is scheduled for Demolition!!!!
The garage’s email to monthly customers, who had their contact information on record, was of little help to those one-time customers who happened to park in the garage on Saturday.
But a more immediate question: If the “full vacate order was issued by the DOB on Friday, November 3”, why were people allowed to park their cars in the garage as late as 11:30 AM the following day, Saturday, November 4?
I believe part of the problem may be that electric cars are significantly heavier than gas cars.
This is utter nonsense. The most popular EV in the world, the Tesla Y weighs between 4100-4500 lbs. A Kia Telluride weighs 4100-4480 lbs. Don’t believe all the negativity about EVs. It’s usually published by someone with vested interest. EVs will continue to get lighter as the tech progresses.
Electric cars are heavier but only about 5 % of all-electric cars that have been sold in America in 2023 compared to gas powered. So the garage is not falling apart because of electric cars.
It’s clear that NYC needs to extensively develop municipal parking garages.
That’s something the Port Authority could do.
The Port Authority is a wasteful and inefficient quasi-governmental agency that shouldn’t be given more resources to squander.
Cars have no place on the UWS all parking garages should be closed and turned into green spaces. E-bikes are the wave of the future. No one has ever been killed by an E-bike.
No one has ever been killed by an E-bike. Do you even read the news, or do you have a very selective memory?
And this handicapped person could never ride a bike, e- or other.
Not everyone is a fit and healthy 20-something. Seniors and people with mobility limitations cannot use bicycles or most mass transit, especially when lugging packages or suitcases. Cars are a necessity for many people, unless you think anyone with physical limitations should be prisoners in their homes.
OPOD:
Mass transit bus and subway should be utilized – not ebikes
🤣😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Sounds a little selfish?
That is just wrong. E-bikes can and have killed people. The numbers are small but growing, as the number of e-bikes grows.
But we can’t take our family of four to visit my mother-in-law in New Jersey on an e-bike.
Reality begs to disagree with you.
https://www.nydailynews.com/2023/07/16/nyc-deaths-on-e-bikes-e-scooters-and-other-e-devices-exceed-bicycles-data-show/
The Department of Buildings (DOB) visited the garage over the summer and believed that the violations to be repaired were taking much longer than required and gave the owner a period of three (3) months to address them. {The contractor began their repairs during Covid – and was addressing them, albeit slowly] On Thursday, November 2, the DOB followed up and saw that their instructions to repair the violations within the 3 month period were not complied with. The DOB issued the garage attendants a verbal warning that the Garage was deemed unsafe and that all cars should be removed ASAP. However, no formal written notice was issued and no Vacate Notice was pasted against the garage. According to the garage attendants, they contacted their supervisors about the DOB visit. It appears that neither the supervisors or management took the verbal notice seriously, as no written notice was given.
Fast forward, Saturday, November 4, middle of the afternoon, the DOB once again visited and immediately shut down the Garage = they pasted a Vacate notice on the facade, post dated November 2, 2023. Oddly enough,, the Summons, which is also posted on the facade, references the Date of Occurrence as Saturday, November 4, 2023. I walk by that Garage daily and there was nothing slapped/pasted against the facade prior to November 4, 2023. The Vacate Notice, dated November 2, appears suspicious. Why was it not posted by DOB on November 2 so as to give patrons enough notice? I really doubt anyone would park in there upon seeing such a notice.
The Garage has a hearing scheduled for Thursday, January 11, 2024. As an engineer involved in structural repairs, the bldg does not appear to be in a state of collapse. The contractor was removing spalled /loose concrete and repairing cracks along the brick facade. This attention and closure will obviously put more pressure on the Owner and Contractor to complete the repair much quicker. Knowing how City hall works, I can see the garage being fully operational by Spring time. Stay tuned!
It sounds like that building is in very bad shape. If it collapses it could be dangerous to people who are walking or standing in front of it. You should use the other side of the street when walking on W. 80th Street between Broadway and Amsterdan Avenue.
It’s not just EVs. Some of these garages were built in the twenties and ythirties when the typical family car weighed a fraction of what a modern car weighs today. I noted during the coverage of the last garage collapse that every vehicle in the photo was an SUV. Decades of these heavy trucks rumbling up and down the rampps takes its toll.
There are seven upper west side garages are about to be shut down by the city.
There are?