By Gus Saltonstall
There is an air of celebration this week on West 86th Street, between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West.
On Monday, the sidewalk shed that has stood for 19 years at 51 West 86th Street came down.
“Naturally the tenants are ecstatic and celebrated in the lobby as the last pieces of the sidewalk shed were removed,” Ellen Adler, a resident of the building and one of the leaders in the years-long fight to have the sidewalk shed and scaffolding removed. “A bigger party is being planned by the tenants to celebrate the years of activism that led to this happy result.”
The removal of the sidewalk shed on Monday comes around four months after the scaffolding and netting that had covered the front of 51 West 86th Street since 2020 also came down.
There are no recent permits filed with the city that indicate any new sidewalk shed or scaffolding is expected to go back up, according to a New York City Department of Building’s database.
The nearly two-decade-old sidewalk shed at 51 West 86th Street earned the ignominious honor this spring as the Worst Sidewalk Shed on the West Side, in the first ever “Sheddie Awards,” which were hosted by State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Micah Lasher.
The building’s ground-level sidewalk shed dates back to 2006. In 2022, it was one of the properties included in a lawsuit filed by the City of New York against Weinreb Management for building violations. Weinreb is the owner of 51 West 86th Street.
“Through an affirmative litigation case brought by our partners at the Law Department, we were able to compel the owners of this property to finally make needed façade repairs and return the valuable sidewalk space in front of the building back to the public,” New York City Department of Building’s Commissioner James Oddo told West Side Rag in an email, while also highlighting the city’s “Get Sheds Down” initiative.
Among the violations listed in city records was “failing to correct hazardous facade defects.”
“It turns out it’s a beautiful building,” another neighbor who did not want to provide their name said after the shed’s removal. “I never thought this day would come.”
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Let’s hope the trend continues! My corner @Columbus –12 years of scaffolding. I can’t take it anymore and it’s not even on my building. I can’t even imagine how the tenants feel.
Now go after the owner of 131 West 70 Street. Stop work order issued 17 years ago and ever since a side walk shed in place. Over the years many complaints and fines but city does nothing to fix the situation.
Our 4 year old sidewalk shed is in process of removal this week, yippee!
It IS a beautiful building!
I’m so confused. Are there still conditions on the facade that require scaffolding? If not, why would the owner pay the scaffolding company for years for unnecessary protection? Either the facade is still dangerous, in which case there should be scaffolding – or the landlord’s been wasting money all this time, which knowing landlords I find impossible to believe. Something’s missing from this story.
It’s because often times the price of years of scaffolding is less expensive than actually doing the work. (yes, I know — it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true!) So they’d rather keep the scaffolding + sidewalk shed up than actually repair the facade of the building.
Yes, and that is why the laws have to be changed, fines raised and actually collected or the owner goes to jail. I also agree with the proposed idea of inspections every ten years instead of five. (I am fairly sure more workers die falling from scaffolding than someone dies getting hit by a falling stone from a building.) The whole thing is scandalous and harmful to our great city. Legislation must be much more vigorous than what has been recently implemented.
Am no expert, but wondering about whether he gets a reduction in taxes due to ‘loss’ on the building or what not? I can’t imagine any other reason other than some financial benefit to the building owner that exceeds the costs of paying for the scaffolding.
Nope. This is an urban myth akin to the belief that landlords get property tax breaks for keeping retail spaces empty.
perhaps the scaffolding is cheaper than the repairs?
Of course! However why cant the owners of the building get the tenants to contribute to the cost of the repairs ? … When I lived on West Side Ave many years ago .. All tenants within the building were charged a fee and the work on the outside of the building was fixed within six months…! Brilliant! The fee charged to tenants was minimal and the result was enormous! Cheers!
So a child born in 2006 who is now a college sophomore or similar is seeing the in encumbered building for the first time, beyond wild
That’s a resonant perspective—yikes!
Insane that scaffolding can stay up for twenty years with no fines or penalties.
Really weird! What other insane abuses occur in the city .. that – lets face it- is totally asleep all the time!
One could only wish that our council people would tilt less at windmills and focus on issues that drive every New Yorker crazy. The recently passed (and much touted by the politicians ) scaffold law has more holes than Swiss cheese.
Meanwhile our beautiful city is awash in scaffolding and the attendant problems these eyesores bring.
The new law also punishes buildings that get their work done on a timely basis, all in the name of cracking down on the relatively few (but extremely annoying) buildings that leave their sheds up for years.
Get rid of the stupid law. No other city has this problem.
I’m loving it! It feels like you are in a different neighborhood.
There is ZERO reason to have scaffolding for 20 years in front of an already built building – whew for the removal of an eyesore and a health hazard besides (pigeons and rodents and all manner of oy-vey live in these scaffolds!). Now, onward to other ‘forever there’ scaffolds that are basically squatting on city sidewalks and obscuring light and air from so many store fronts and apartments.
The THEEE BUILDING complex known as PARK WEST VILLAGE 97 st to 100 st has been surrounded by scaffolding for years with no facade or balcony work taking place.
What legal and political pressure can be applied to get this scaffolding
removed? I hope we don’t have to wait 20 Years !
For those who care, Zohran Mamdani has just floated the idea of changing permits for sidewalk sheds from four years to three – and revocable if the landlord cannot show “proof of work” being done. He would also increase fines, and if no work is done in a three-year period, the landlord would be required to remove the shed, and would have to get a new permit (and pay fines) to re-install it. And since the mayor controls the DOB, this is actually something he could effect.
If implemented, this would essentially prevent ANY sidewalk shed from being up for more than three years, unless work is actually ongoing. And once the work is done, the shed would have to come down quickly.
How do you define “proof of work” being done when half of these sheds are up because the buildings are waiting for Landmarks-compliant replacement parts that have a 8-18 month waiting period?
8-18 months, not 8-18 years.
Please get rid of all the scaffolding on upper Broadway. You can’t see the stores and businesses.
Did anyone see the cartoon on p. 36 in the October 20, 2025 issue of The New Yorker? The caption says, “Hey, I’m going to be late They took down the scaffolding that’s been up since I moved in, and now I have no idea where I am.”
Funny! Haha.