By Daniel Katzive
An apartment building on West 86th Street has earned the ignominious honor of hosting the overall worst sidewalk shed on the West Side. The so-called Sheddie Award was conferred by State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Micah Lasher in a ceremony outside the building on Thursday morning.
Hoylman-Sigal launched the awards this year to identify the most egregious examples of sidewalk sheds that have remained in place for an excessively long period. He said his web survey, which invited nominations from the public, had received over 100 submissions, “as well as countless additional calls to the office or constituents stopping us at events or on the streets to make sure that their least favorite scaffolding was in the running.”
The overall winner of Worst Sidewalk Shed on the West Side went to 51 West 86th Street, a residential building on the north side of the street between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West. (That address was featured in the Rag’s story yesterday that focused on the problem of long-term scaffolding and possible ways to solve it.)
A shed has been in place at the West 86th Street location for nearly 20 years and has been supplemented more recently by scaffolding along the outside of the building for the past four years, according to residents. Ellen Adler, who lives in the building, told West Side Rag she has been advocating to get the shed removed for years. She said she was excited and proud that her building had been recognized.
“We’re very grateful for the award, for the attention, for the concern,” Adler told the assembled crowd. “It’s been a long, long fight. It’s not over, it’s still here.”
Senator Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Lasher used the occasion to highlight legislation they have introduced in their respective chambers in Albany, which would reward landlords who erect and remove scaffolding in less than a year by granting them property tax rebates; landlords that left scaffolding in place for more than eighteen months would be penalized.
“It’s important to recognize that a significant part of the scourge of sidewalk sheds in this community, and in many communities around the city, is an economic choice that landlords are making,” said Lasher, in explaining the carrot-and-stick approach taken by the legislation.
City Councilmember Gale Brewer was also on hand for the ceremony and said that at its next meeting on March 26, the City Council is ready to pass three bills aimed at improving scaffolding oversight and conditions.
The award for Worst Commercial Building Shed went to 698-700 Amsterdam Avenue at West 94th Street, which houses West Side Deli and New Amsterdam Drug Mart, while P.S. 87 on West 78th Street was recognized as the Worst West Side Public Facility with scaffolding.
West Park Presbyterian Church at West 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue took the award for longest tenured shed on the West Side. It is believed to have been in place for up to 25 years. The awards for Worst Residential Building Shed and Worst Overall Building Shed both went to 51 West 86th Street.
Senator Hoylman-Sigal, who donned a black bow tie to preside over Thursday’s ceremony, looked back at 51 West 86th and channeled Ronald Reagan as he announced the big award, leading the crowd to shout out “Mr. Landlord, tear down this shed!”
For more on the plague of persistent sidewalk sheds on the Upper West Side, please see yesterday’s West Side Rag feature article.
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I think most people are looking at this the wrong way. Sidewalk shed are GREAT, particularly when it’s raining and you know there is a length of a block you can walk without getting wet. LOL.
LOL. And it is a great gig working at one of those buildings as you don’t have to shovel when it snows.
I agree. A couple years back I was able to walk to Fairway from our building almost entirely under cover. Barely got wet!
Well, the thing is: there are entire cultures where sidewalk overhangs are common architectural features and are quite beautiful and humanizing. They are called arcades in English and are found usually in areas with intense sunshine and heat during the day.
I love them! But the NYC sidewalk sheds are not any of that.
If we’re going to do permanent weather protecting sidewalk arcades, let’s do it right.
The scaffolding surrounding that church on 86th Street has been there for 25 years.
With Gale Brewer and a host of lefty celebrities fighting against the church’s demolition my guess is the scaffolding will be there another 25 years.
It’s called an umbrella and it does not cause blight, hurt small businesses, and kill workers, unlike the plague of scaffolding.
It has become a home for pigeons. Instead, they should knock down the church and build housing. There are more pigeons in the scaffolding than people in the church.
such a snap judgment to tear down at church that that had some of the only charm to what’s Left of our once beautiful neighborhood.
I don’t think making light of the sheds and handing out cutsey awards is the best way to get them removed.
The city could cut the number of sidewalk sheds in half by changing the exterior facade inspection cycle from 5 to ten years. There are certainly safe ways to do it. One wonders if there are to many businesses with an interest in not permitting that to happen.
or even five to seven or eight would make a difference
Did you read the part about legislation? And you know how hard landlords will push back? Publicity helps! Harnessing public sentiment helps. Even if the proposed city council and legislative rules get the time window pushed to two or three years, as opposed to 12/18 months, that would be an improvement. Our building has had to have big delays with local law 11 work with the cold winter – everyone has. But even in a large building I’m betting the work gets done inside 2 years. They might need a formula for increments of 5 floors taking a few months longer or something – big buildings take longer than small ones. But imagine the pleasant streetscapes if scaffolding older than 2-3 years was gone! Worth the umbrellas!
Don’t underestimate the value of public shaming.
I’m dumbstruck that the NE corner of 74th x Columbus didn’t even get mentioned in the WSR story. The scaffolding there been up for over 10 years and I have never seen anyone working on the building in all that time. Not once.
They’ve worked on it sporadically over the years. It even came down for a day or 2, but immediately went back up. It’s a rat infested blight.
Time to repeal Local Law 11
Agree, this law creates more problems than it fixes. There’s a reason no other city has scaffolding to the extent NYC does.
Not repeal, amend. The concept is worthy, but it’s one of the worst craftef laws in city history.
What a shame and so sad …West 78th Street was once the number one Model Block on the Upper West Side during the renovation act of the late 1960s and 19.70s. It is so ugly now and now awarded the worst looking Block on the UWS.
I know they are working on legislation, but this has been an issue for years, the Democrats have controlled every lever of power in the city for years, and I have very little faith that this new legislation will change anything. The city has a lot of problems (primarily around housing and cost of living) and the fact that they are bringing attention to a minor problem that they just can’t seem to fix does not given me confidence about their ability to actually fix anything.
Local law 11 drives up housing costs as the cost of sheds just gets passed to renters, so this would be an easy win whereas the real long term solution of building more housing will take years.
This is not a minor problem. It’s killing workers, hurting small businesses, and the cost of the sheds and local law 11 is driving up rents and maintenance fees, making housing even less affordable
You are right instead of minor I should have said relatively easy. Nobody is for scaffolding. Lots of people are against new housing.
BTW though, “passing through costs” is not how housing works in New York. Landlords charge as much as they can because there is a shortage. They don’t charge their costs plus a little bit of margins for themselves. The only way to lower costs is ending the shortage by building more homes.
Hoylman-Sigal and Lasher are missing the point. If it there were a straightforward, simple, and cost effective way to do facade work, it would get done – why pay for sheds if you don’t have to?
The problem is not greedy landlords. The problem is rules that make repairing facades far more difficult, expensive and time-consuming than needed for safety.
Those rules are mostly imposed by NYCity, vs. NYState, but their bill just complicates an already complicated situation, without helping solve it.
It’s galling that Gale Brewer could shame 51 West 86th street when just one block away at 86th and Amsterdam is a shed that has been up longer — West Park Presbyterian Church. Brewer and others have had a huge role in keeping this shed over West Park with her efforts to Landmark the church and then shut-down its sale, all the while the church has no funding to make necessary repairs.
The proposed remedy is also concerning: “landlords that left scaffolding in place for more than eighteen months would be penalized.”
Do our politicians really think owners want to pay for sheds longer? Have they not spoken to the many constituents who have seen projects delayed beyond 18 months due to inanities from DoB and Landmarks?
51 West 86th is an outlier. Our politicians love to rant about this issue, but they seem totally disconnected from the vast majority of co-ops grappling with an issue that stems from regulations (FISP) that are running off the rails.
Our legislators seem intent on penalizing people for the time it takes to comply with the rules created by our legislators. Instead of, well, understanding and fixing why it’s so hard to do this work quickly.
We will never solve this, or any other issues, with debates, protests, or a cute ceremony! Look at how Republicans are changing things they consider to be problems. Not with a pleasant ceremony or thoughtful discussion. DO SOMETHING!
With all due respect while Hoylman, Brewer et al are somewhat tongue in cheek about the Sheddies they and only they and their colleagues have opportunity to make meaningful changes in that horrendous legislation that costs so many New Yorkers a fortune,, Its simply another tax. Increase the inspection period to 10 years NOW.
The ‘Sheddies’ would be funny if it weren’t so infuriating. Beyond being an eyesore, these sheds worsen the rat problem, make our streets feel darker and less safe, and cost residents a fortune.
It’s beyond time to fix this broken system. Scaffolding shouldn’t be a permanent fixture of our neighborhoods. I fully support Mark Levine’s ‘Shed the Sheds’ plan, and I hope our elected officials make this a priority.
Please take a look at 2726 Broadway 2nd floor, New York, NY 10025. It has this shed beat by a long shot.
Instead of passing laws against this, they are out there performing a comedy skit photo-op. Pathetic!
Please fine these buildings with long standing sheds and scaffolding. They are unsafe, dirty, block light, and kill the businesses underneath.
It’s important to recognize that a significant part of the scourge of sidewalk sheds in this community, and in many communities around the city, is an economic choice that landlords are making,” said Lasher, in explaining the carrot-and-stick approach taken by the legislation
And what is that choice?
Explained in the article – tens of thousands of $$ to put up the shed and pay fines for delay v hundreds of thousands to millions of $$$ to do the inspecting, propose and approve repairs, have the repairs completed and signed off. Plus, shed covers your liability – really bad problem bits fall on the shed, not the passers by. With a few years’ delay, you can say “pending” to several LL11 cycles.
The issue so obviously is not greedy landlords or apartment owners. It’s the regulation. It takes a year to do the work and that’s assuming you have the contractors and architects all available etc… and the scaffolding install and removal takes lengthy approvals on top of just the time to do it. God forbid you are in a landmarked building or area. So you’re looking at a year and a half to two years. 40% of your 5 year cycle. And that’s why the streets are 40% covered. No evidence to support this, but seems likely you are doing more harm to people and workers by blowing dust into their apartments every five years than you are saving from the occasional freak falling brick. Not to mention the cost and blight. The intent is right but implementation and requirements are overly burdensome. Is there anywhere else in the country with a similar requirement with these intervals for every residential building?
I think you’re a little too cavalier about the “occasional falling brick.” If somebody became a vegetable because of a brick falling on their head or died or a family member died you might not take it so lightly. Your take is the extreme.
My completely unscientific research demonstrated that an added blight/hazard caused by the sheds is the accumulation of animal waste, feces and urine. Dog walkers love the sheds, they don’t get wet in the rain as their dogs do their business. But, then, the rains DON”T WASH THE EVIDENCE AWAY for the rest of us. So we dodge the mess, hold our noses, and walk a little faster to emerge to less stench. And no, the buildings DON”T do the mandatory washing of those sidewalks unless the building is a well-managed condo or apartment, and then, they have some pride, and perform the wash downs.
I worry about the ancient sheds for safety of the structures vis a vis the eventual workers and the pedestrians, of course. Are the sheds, themselves, given an inspection – as to their worthiness to remain positioned as they are over our heads?
If the powers that be worked this out with the trades and permitting authorities, there would be an answer. Get all the parties together: inspection officials for the agencies requiring the mandated work; bright minds from engineering schools that study this stuff; the companies renting and installing the sheds, and the Associations for building owners.
Treat it like a Camp David summit: no opening the gates until plans are hammered out!
They will never fix the shed problem until they are willing to recognize the problem with LL 11 and be willing to revise the legislation. But they are afraid that if they do anything, there will be an event of someone being injured and will be blamed for having revised the law.
Since the outset, this law goes far beyond anything reasonable to address the scope of the problem. Now, the property managers, inspection engineers, facade repair contractors and shed contractors have a great gig going among themselves to keep the Law as it is because they are making lots of money–at the expense of the residents who live in these buildings and ultimately are paying for the excessive costs of this Law. It’s shameful.
I find it outrageous that we’re gonna give a tax break to landlords to actually do what they’re supposed to do about the sheds. Definitely penalize them for keeping them up too long, but do not give them a freaking tax break for repairing their building, which is what they have to do by law. Unless you wanna give a tax break or rent rebate to every single person who lives in the building and walks down the street under the scaffolding. This is outrageous and I wish I hadn’t signed a petition to get Brad on the ballot for Manhattan borough President, this is a complete outrage
What tax break is given to landlords for repairing their buildings? Any expense incurred by a landlord is an expense that offsets income.
According to the article, the new legislation would give building owners a property tax rebate if the shed comes down wthin 12 months.
Its about time! Thanks to all who are celebrating these horrible buildings (and scaffolding contrators)! This scaffolding/shed problem on the UWS has been going on much too long and getting worse. The contractors supplying the scaffolding must be making a fortune!! I’m sure many of those profits are going to politicicians to vote to keep this shameful pracitce to continue proliferating. Some neutral party should be tasked with an anylysis to see if the safety gained (if any) is worth all these costs and disruption to the neighborhoods. Keep it up!!! Thanks.
the scaffolding on east side of Broadway 105-104 St., which wraps around, has been up for only 12+ years! I think that this week work was begun on pointing the bricks, FINALLY. Perhaps City Council member Gale Brewer & Manhattan Borough Pres. Mark Levine’s calls to the landlord finally moved something, but I think it was more the threat of every 3 months requiring a permit renewal. And, the landlord is . . . (through Volunteers of America), NYC!
Why don’t they share the landlords name? The landlord of this building has been guilty of this in other buildings.
Reading the name of Brad Hoylman-Sigal in the same sentence as Ronald Reagan’s, wow, I get the quote, but wow. And ouch.
Bringing up P.S. 87 is obviously relevant (as is the old P.S. 9 on the NE corner of 82nd & West End, which has had a sidewalk shed up for years as well), but the REASONS for long-standing sidewalk sheds on schools is different from the reasons for them on residential buildings. In the case of schools, it should actually be easier for our elected officials to take care of, since they can “move” the BOE far quicker than they can move private building owners.
Hoylman, Lander & Co. need to get on the horn to the BOE stat, and get them moving on school-related sidewalk sheds.
How about the scaffolding on west 104 st near the post Office . That corner has had scaffolding up for over 17 years. Since it was up two neighboring high rise buildings have been built less than two blocks .