By Gus Saltonstall
522 feet.
That is how far the sidewalk shed stretches around the Astor Building at 2139 Broadway, between West 75th and 76th streets.
To put another way, it is 174 yards of scaffold. Easily longer than a football field and three times the length of an Olympic swimming pool.
The sidewalk shed covers the entire block on the west side of Broadway, between West 75th and 76th streets, and also wraps around the corner toward West End Avenue on both streets. Due to its official “heavy duty” classification, the sidewalk shed has thicker stanchions and roofing than a typical scaffold, which means less light travels through onto the sidewalk and pedestrians are met with more metal than other stretches of construction equipment.
There has been a sidewalk shed on the Broadway block for nearly 12 years, according to the Department of Buildings’ Active Sidewalk Shed tracker. The shed first swathed the street in June of 2014, before coming halfway down from 2021 through 2023, and then going fully back up, along with the construction netting, in 2024, Google Maps images show.
West Side Rag reached out to the DOB for more information on the reasoning for the sidewalk shed. Here is how it was explained by a spokesperson from the city agency.
In 2014, the shed was erected in connection with a “vertical enlargement project” at the address, which was meant to add stories to The Astor. There have been permits related to this vertical enlargement project since 2012 at the building, and multiple of those construction jobs are still active.
Additionally, the building is part of the city’s Facade Inspection and Safety Program because it is over six stories in height, and there is currently a job to repair issues in the facade that were discovered in 2023, which included cracked limestones, cracked terra cotta segments, and several examples of eroded mortar joints [the filled space between bricks that serve as the structural bonds].
In 2020, The Astor was placed in the DOB’s Long Standing Shed program, which subjects building owners who have had sidewalk sheds in place for more than three years to enhanced enforcement actions, including proactive inspections, potential affirmative litigation, and potential criminal court summonses.
However, a DOB spokesperson said the city agency hasn’t pursued enhanced enforcement against The Astor because “construction jobs have remained active since the sidewalk shed first went up and needed repairs at parts of the building have been made.”
In response to the Rag’s email, though, the DOB reached out to the building’s owner and their Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector to get an updated timeline for when the permits at The Astor will be closed out and the sidewalk shed removed.
Who Owns the Building?
The Astor is owned by the CIM Group, which is a real estate and infrastructure firm. Initially, the CIM Group was one of the lenders on a renovation project of the Upper West Side building by its previous owner, HFZ Capital Development, but the developer ran into problems, and the CIM Group foreclosed on the property in 2021.
Last month, The Astor’s condo board threatened to sue the CIM Group related to the ongoing construction at the building, but the paperwork filed in New York State Supreme Court did not specify the issues, as first reported by Crain’s.
CIM Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Rag.
The Situation at the Street Level
There are four commercial spaces on Broadway under the sidewalk shed at The Astor, between West 75th and 76th streets, and three of them are vacant. 260 Sample Sale is the lone business still operating on the street.
Multiple readers have also mentioned that homeless encampments have become fixtures on the block. When West Side Rag visited the street on Tuesday, there were two men with extensive set ups underneath the sidewalk shed, but both denied an attempt at questions.
The Rag will update this story when we hear back from the DOB on the updated timeline for The Astor sidewalk shed.
Subscribe to West Side Rag’s FREE email newsletter here. And you can Support the Rag here.
That stretch of block is an eyesore, made more so by the encampments. It’s depressing and I don’t know why local politicians have allowed this mess to continue. What business would want to move into that space looking the way it does? Same thing with 86th and Broadway, where a homeless person has recently been defacing the pavement outside my building with colored chalks and messages about ICE. He’s doing the same thing to the cement barriers on each side of the intersection at 86Th and Broadway. I feel like I’m back in the East Village.
While you may dislike it, there is actually no law against drawing on the sidewalk, as long as the materials used are not permanent. Chalk is the LEAST permanent medium for drawing on the sidewalk. The kids in my building draw on our sidewalk regularly, and it all comes off with the next rain, or a good hosing down.
BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!
…“construction jobs have remained active since the sidewalk shed first went up and needed repairs at parts of the building have been made.”
Setting aside the hopelessly ungrammatical nature of this sentence, this is utter blaoney.
I pass by that building almost every day. and I have RARELY seen any work going on. Is the DOB simply taking the owner’s word for it? Or are they at least doing the “proactive inspections” to determine whether the owner is telling the truth?
I would very much like to know, because not only is this whole thing a massive eyesore, but no NEW business is going to open up under an active sidewalk shed and scaffolding, so all those empty storefronts will remain empty until the shed comes down.
Terrible. The scaffolding has also allowed that rat Ethan to infest that block for months now.