By Gus Saltonstall
The era of the sidewalk shed and scaffolding at the corner of the east side of 104th Street and Broadway has come to an end.
After a portion of the sidewalk shed was removed this June, the remainder of the structure came down on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Department of Design and Construction confirmed to West Side Rag.
Over the years, the shed has been singled out by local block associations and elected officials as a significant “blight” in the surrounding community, as West Side Rag first reported in 2024.
Upper West Side Assemblymember Micah Lasher, who has worked in partnership with City Councilmember Shaun Abreu to remove the construction equipment, celebrated the departure of the sidewalk shed on Wednesday.
“After a decade, the NE corner of 104th Street and Broadway has been fully freed of its scaffolding!” he wrote on X.
The sidewalk shed went up sometime between 2012 and 2013 at the city-owned Regents Family Residence building at 2720 Broadway, a transitional Department of Social Services homeless shelter. The scaffold enveloped the next-door Ben & Jerry’s storefront, and was extended in 2014 to also cover the McDonald’s at 2726 Broadway.
Over the years, the address had racked up more than 140 violations with the Department of Buildings.
Read More:
- Sidewalk Shed at West 104th Street Starts To Come Down After More than a Decade
- Notorious UWS Sidewalk Shed Set to Come Down in June Amid Continued Pressure From Local Pols
- Here’s What’s Going On With the Longtime Sidewalk Shed Over McDonald’s at West 104th Street: ‘Unfair to Our Community’
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Now please get rid of all the other sheds on Upper Broadway in the 100’s and 110’s. The sheds really hurt businesses.
Supposedly the new law about sidewalk sheds increases the required time interval for facade inspections from 5 years to six to twelve. There was other stuff tacked into the bill. I hope the changes show some effect.
Victor, or “Green Eyes,” memorialized by the WSR last week, was often found underneath the sidewalk shed mentioned in the OP and just taken down betw 104th and 105th.
What the photograph doesn’t convey is the wonderful rich color of the cleaned (?)/ new (?) copper of the mansard roof. The other day with full sun reflecting off of it, it was glorious.
Yeah, and then they immediately put scaffolding up on the other half of the block. It still sucks.
Yes! That was so unfortunate.
Have the building violations been resolved???
What happened to all the lawmakers saying “take the sheds down now”? Just PR stunts? Sure seems like no one ever follows up to make things happen with these elected officials. They get their news press and that’s it.
This is ONE building? What about the thousands that block small businesses and cause dark alleys until they go out of business? Every scaffolding draws problems and this city just keeps on letting them stay up years.
Where is the follow up?
The new shed laws were signed into law this April.
90 day permits, down from 1 year. Higher fines for stalled work. And progress reports have to be filed if the shed stays up for more than the initial 90 days.
I am glad to see some improvement in the law. I wait to see whether the extra bureaucratic work that the law creates will actually be done. Will we have building owners filing occasional progress reports while work is stalled and they might pay an occasional higher fine?
I appreciate the info. Here is to hoping it makes a difference. Still concerned about building owners who would rather pay the fines than fix their building issues. Until there is a way to fix that loophole, I’m not sure we’ll see the results we are looking for. One can hope.
thank you. thank you for this.
It’s owned by the city? So the city issuing violations to itself
I hear this is going to be a shelter again. Why does city keep crushing 96th-106th (arguably 110th)? I just don’t get it. Fair share laws and common sense need not apply.
Yes, Broadway from W96-110 need to be cleaned up and renovated and gain some investments.
When we see photos of Paris, London, Rome, Montreal,etc. they seem to manage to have a clean attractive City without all these sheds. I haven’t been to Europe in a long time but I don’t remember seeing all the construction over there.
How do other cities manage?
Granted, if it saves somebody from being a hit in the head with falling to bricks and debris, I’m all for it. However, The source should be repaired quickly with a very short time frame so there’s no need for all this construction.
Absolutely, its a fake issue, many much older cities in Europe manage to inspect their buildings without miles and miles of scaffolding. Local Law 11 was weakened earlier this year but needs to be entirely revoked.
One sees some scaffolding in Rome, but nothing comparable to what we have here. I don’t think we’re going to see a repeal of Local Law 11 anytime soon. There is now a big industry of sidewalk shed putting up, taking down, and collecting rent in between.
Now let’s please clean up the block entirely, including the gracious folks who are happy to hold open the door for you at the McDonald’s.
You want to clean up by getting rid of locals on the street? If you don’t fit in on that block that says more about you and your place in this neighborhood than it does about them.
Adam is not talking about “locals” in any strict sense.
No one has the right to hold a door or anything else to interfere with the business. Some people are uncomfortable with that and that interferes with someone’s business. I don’t care if it’s a corporation or a small business. The city needs to do a better job with providing help to people that are on the street. There’s more than enough money and instead of wasting it and being corrupt and paying off each other, it could be helping these people, but there is absolutely no right for anyone to stand in front of a business’s door and impede their business.
Still no progress on the status of the Church on Amsterdam and 86th. Lots of noise and hand waving … but no changes. In the meantime, the clock is ticking at approx 24 years and counting for the scaffolding.
It really is ridiculous that scaffolding remains up for years at a time. There ought to be clear limits in the law to how many months they can remain, with a process that requires PROVING why it needs to remain up any longer, and fines for any extension. Also, perhaps make it an incentive to get them down before the deadline. Dunno what was already tried, but years in scaffolding should not be a thing.
This is the current law. Everyone has a reason to keep them up: complying with the city’s facade inspection cycles, which requires years of work.
Hallelujah!!
Delete
The shed on the Weinreb bldg @ 51 W ST has been up for 21 YEARS..We have petitioned, There have been articles been written.. Grateful for any suggestions.
How come no comments about how the owner of the building is the city?! The City is handing out violations to its own property?! How the hell is that a thing?
I ride my bike all over the UWS, mostly b/w 59th and 96th, on all Avenues and many side streets. And I have noticed in the past few weeks that A LOT of the sidewalk sheds -both those that include scaffolding and those that don’t – are gone. It is like a small miracle. I don’t know who is responsible, but please keep it up.
And for those who are still having issues with sidewalk sheds and/or scaffolding, keep raising your voices. The number of sidewalk sheds that I have personally seen gone in the past few weeks is nothing short of heart-warming.