
By Gus Saltonstall
When West Side Rag reported last March on the longtime sidewalk shed at West 104th Street and Broadway, we received multiple follow-up emails from readers with questions about another nearby construction structure that has been up for nearly four years:
The sidewalk shed and scaffolding on the northwest corner of 110th Street and Broadway.
The sidewalk shed covers the majority of the 110th Street block on Broadway, and extends around the corner toward Riverside Drive. The temporary construction structure is located in a particularly busy area. Along with the adjacent 110th Street intersection, the sidewalk shed covers a 1 train station and a fruit stand, as well as a Chipotle, Five Guys, and Playa Bowls, all of which are popular with nearby Columbia University students.
In an effort to find out when the the structure might be coming down, the Rag reached out to the Department of Buildings and the owner of the property that the sidewalk shed is connected to.

Here’s what we found
The sidewalk shed and scaffolding are connected to the building at 601 West 110th Street.
The owner of that 271-unit building is the real estate developer Atlas Capital Group, which oversees both the residential and commercial spaces of the property. The sidewalk shed first went up at the location for alteration work at the property on February 19, 2021, according to the Department of Building’s Sidewalk Shed Tracker.
The construction work hit a snag in the winter of 2022, though, when a routine inspection of 601 West 110th Street was submitted to the DOB that labeled the building’s facade as “unsafe,” according to a spokesperson from the city agency.
With the new designation, a variety of other alteration work on the building had to take place related to the facade, along with separate ongoing wiring and renovation projects within the Playa Bowls and Five Guys storefronts, a DOB database shows.
Scaffolding and a net were also erected in 2023 that cover the entirety of the Broadway-facing side of 601 West 110th Street.
“The scaffolding and sidewalk shed should have come down a long, long time ago,” Councilmember Shaun Abreu told West Side Rag about the 110th Street building. “Sidewalks are for the people who live here, not steel and rotting wood.”
On October 1, 2024, the owners of the building were issued a new permit from the city to extend the duration of the sidewalk shed at the address.
While a new permit for the sidewalk shed may not be a welcome sign for nearby residents who are hoping the construction is nearing completion, it appears there is an end in sight.
When we reached out to Atlas Capital Group for comment about the sidewalk shed, a public relations firm representing the real estate developer told us that the construction at 601 West 110th Street was in the final phases of completing the facade work, and that the scaffolding and sidewalk shed were expected to come down within the next six months.
We’ll keep an eye on whether that timeline holds true.
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OMG, you could write a “What’s the Deal with the Sidewalk Shed” story dozens of times by walking around the UWS.
They are a plague on our neighborhood.
Yes, they are
Next, please do 2720 Broadway at 104th St. The last Google street view that shows it without scaffolding is August 2011!! If this scaffolding was a kid, its parents would be starting the high school process!
Hi Steen, thanks for reading! This is the one we did: https://www.westsiderag.com/2024/05/28/heres-whats-going-on-with-the-longtime-sidewalk-shed-at-west-104th-street-over-mcdonalds-unfair-to-our-community
Please fine this owner. There is no reason for a sidewalk shed to be up for four years. There are also more sheds at 115-116th.
The sidewalk shed law should be vetoed entirely, no other city (including many cities in Europe that also have older buildings) has scaffolding plaguing their streets.
i agree! i have been to many beautiful cities in europe with old, but well maintained buildings and never saw scaffolding or sheds.
The problem is that the law requires the sheds to go up but doesn’t require them to come down.
Scaffolding is essential when work is being done. There are strict regulations that certain work has to be done every certain amount of years. If work is being done then I’m fine with it. The problem is when there is no work. Like on Bdwy and 104. The building is a family shelter, I guess the City doesn’t have money to fix the issues. Which is disgusting, that street is so dirty and gross.
Don’t know about that UWS Dad – they’re better done elsewhere, but they’re there. Might be something about people not wanted to be conked by falling masonry, or tools when people are working up there.
That is so unlikely to happen that its like running the subway at 5 miles per hour to prevent anyone from falling in the subway car. There are so many alternatives to sheds. You can post signs on the sidewalk warning people of the danger or use netting near the work site, as is done in most other cities. And more workers have died doing this unnecessary work than pedestrians have died from falling masonry that, at the moment, Local Law is actually the greater danger to lives than any facade would be.
That’s a really terrible idea. The entire neighborhood is made of old masonry buildings. The shed law was implemented precisely because someone got killed near Columbia by bricks that fell off a building that wasn’t maintained properly. They need a law now that requires the sheds to come down.
That is fine and dandy, but for multiple years these monstrosities plague the neighborhoods. A good amount of time there are no workers present. Maybe the city needs to put a hard cap on the amount of time they can actually be up. Oh wait I thought Mayor Adams was already doing that lol!
This is absurd. It’s petty clear that everyone involved has an interest in labeling a facade “unsafe” so that the building is forced to spend millions on unnecessary repairs and erect these monstrous sidewalk sheds which cost thousands of dollars per year to lease. Owners should self certify and if someone gets hurt they should be sued. Simple. Everything is just a scam, costing millions, killing local business and putting workers at risk. Repeal Local Law 11!
I am convinced this whole thing is a kick back scam. I am wondering who owns those scaffold firms
If you want to walk around wearing a hardhat to protect from falling masonry, be my guest
I believe Atlas leases this building as student housing to Columbia University? regardless of which entity controls it, they’ve run this corner down tremendously over the last 15 years. Remember Taci? The Korean newsstand? The shoeshine place?
All gone, replaced by filthy chain restaurants (Chipotle & 5 Guys set out trash bins that absolutely reek of grease and transfat at night), the scaffolding, a million ebikes locked to the metal bars and open-air bedding on the sidewalk.
The city should hammer the landlords with fines for failing to maintain clean and sanitary sidewalks and do the same to those businesses. Catering *only* to the undergrads in the area has created this state of affairs and it’s high time things change.
This is not a Columbia building.
One of the biggest problems with this particular shed was that it seemed to have attracted a small group of junkies that set up camp there for about a year or so. They moved on a couple months ago and I hope that they got help and are back on their feet, but this thing needs to come down ASAP. Six months can’t come soon enough!
It also seems like they’re also never working on it. Any time I’ve seen guys up there, it’s just two dudes moving materials around.. and even that is rare.
The sheds are dirty, bring homeless to sleep underneath, let alone kills the businesses that are hidden underneath.
Upper Jess Side – Its all a matter of where you draw the line, but you’re kidding yourself if you think this isn’t a real world risk: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/nyregion/nyc-building-violations.html. We all should want laws ensuring that facades are safe. Agreed too that we should all want laws making sure these problems are addressed quickly, and sheds aren’t up endlessly. But we’re going to pay for it. In my coop we had a pause on work for many months because we were waiting on material only two places in the country. Want the scaffolding down and then put back up? No small cost.
Thank you for this important local reporting, Gus and WSR!
The sidewalk shed at 212 West 91st Street has been up for over two years and no work has ever been done. It covers Dagon, Carmine’s, and Tal’s on Broadway.
I was thinking of this one too, but it’s much longer than two years. I believe it’s pre pandemic.
Either repeal the law requiring pointing every 5 years, or extend to 10 years. Are you listening Sean Abreu?
What’s the deal on scaffolding at 120 Riverside Dr. at 84th St. for over 13 years and covering the neighboring apartment 13 years. Any updates on that. What’s the deal with scaffolding scams in this entire borough.
I am currently in DC and just finished a 6 mile walk. I encountered only 1 sidewalk shed and that was a new building under construction. I lived in Istanbul for 4 years and rarely if ever saw a sidewalk shed. The issue of sidewalk sheds seems to be one thing that every New Yorker is in agreement with. Even most of the City Council profess to hate these eyesores. So I ask: Why isn’t something meaningful being done to get them down? Inspections every 5 years are ludicrous. Just look at Central Park South at the moment. It is completely covered as is most of W. 57th St. Let’s face it the only entity that benefits is the scaffolding companies.
Surely the problem is (1) the falling masonry is a liability; (2) a sidewalk shed protects the building owner from the liability; (3) actual repair is expensive and likely to be put off; (4)there is insufficient incentive for some landlords to connect shed installation & removal to timely repair work.
There is genuine risk from falling masonry – I can think of two tragic deaths in recent memory from that, one on the UWS and one in midtown. So that law makes sense. A tweak to improve timely repair will be harder to pass and more resisted by real estate and construction interests.
The Shed at 51 W 86th has been up for ‘nearly’ 20 years…
There should be an observable difference between various long-term scaffolding structures. Is there construction activity occurring regularly at the site or not? Depending on the answer, different means of dealing with the issue should be employed. Obviously, concentration should be focused on those structures surrounding buildings that are sitting idle for extended periods (regardless of what the owner claims to be occuring). Those with ongoing activity should still be investigated if only to track a promised endpoint. That might be the case for the example on 110 St. However, I suspect most are problematic long-term structures sitting completely idle for years that should be dealt with more harshly.
Thank you for investigating. The shed has been home to particularly unpleasant vagrants as well as being a hangout for many e-bike and scooter delivery men. Sometimes as many as 20 hanging out. Getting to the subway has been a challenge. Weaving one’s way through stinking bedding/druggies, delivery bikes, the vegetable cart(a nice thing) and the shed supports on a busy day is like a Labor of Hercules.
Many people likely do not understand the financial hardship which the well intentioned Local Law 11 laws can cause. Inspections are preformed every 5 or 7 years and in my smaller (40 unit) brick building, the cost to make the minor repairs always costs nearly $1million, which must be paid by the residents. The law was recently strengthened (in my opinion unnecessarily) to not allow certain patches, and this cycle’s repairs will cost well over $2 million. And if a building can not afford the repairs, a shed goes up until a solution is found. But as they say, you can’t get blood from a stone.
you are 100% correct.
At a minimum, they need to change the law to be 5 years AFTER THE LAST WORK is complete, vs. EVERY 5 years as currently implemented.
Our building (65 units) is also having to spend extra with the new rule of having to replace the bricks vs. patching them.
Total nightmare.
I wish I could find out why both sides of the street on 100th between Riverside and West End near West End seem to have no end in sight for scaffolding. What is particular of issue is the taking over of all the parking spots on the street to store supplies – is that even ‘legal’