By Gus Saltonstall
A sidewalk shed was torn off an Upper West Side building during the storm on Saturday night.
The storm’s strong winds ripped a section of the shed to the ground that was attached to 276 Riverside Drive, near the corner of West 100th Street.
“Debris was blown part way up the street and a pile of material landed on parked cars,” Lawrence Langham wrote in an email to West Side Rag.
In the immediate aftermath, police closed the street off to clean up the debris and to make sure residents did not walk underneath the structure.
WSR visited the building on Monday morning and spoke to a doorman at 276 Riverside Drive, who confirmed that nobody was injured during the incident. “Nothing like that has ever happened,” added the doorman, who did not provide his name.
The debris had been picked up by Monday morning, but the missing pieces from the sidewalk shed were still visible.
The 276 Riverside Drive building is owned by Weinreb Management. Previous reporting in 2021 found that 10 of the 11 Manhattan buildings owned by the management company were swathed in sidewalk sheds at the time, including multiple buildings on the Upper West Side.
Weinreb Management also owns 51 West 86th Street, where a particularly notorious sidewalk shed came down after 19 years in 2025.
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A woman died in Chelsea 10+ years ago during a particularly windy day, killed by a flying slat of heavy plywood from a construction shed not unlike this one.
I’m sure the powers that be (and are so keen to protect us) are working overtime on an in-depth inspections on the construction quality and safety of the safety shed. Of course, with the full cooperation of the shed owner, for whom the safety of the public is of utmost importance. And they apologize for the inconvenience.
That was on W 12th right outside where we used to live. There was construction on what used to be St. Vincent’s hospital. My husband left about 10 minutes before it happened. He called and said there was crazy wind. Tragic.
I just checked the NYC shed map and that shed’s been up since 2023 (I live a few blocks away, so I was pretty sure it had been up a while.) Isn’t it ironic that a structure meant to protect pedestrians might be the thing that ends up hurting them? Lucky no one was injured.
But you do wonder: who inspects the inspection-required sheds? How could pieces of this thing just blow off?
(Maybe this is because the building is owned by the notorious Weinreb Management, the UWS’s worst building owner.)
excellent idea. Think of the money that could be generated from all those sheds snd put to
good use elsewhere.
We need more sheds to protect us from the existing sheds
I’m sure the City Council ate hard at work drafting, negotiating and redrafting legislation necessary to imposing that requirement. A new cause celebre!
The facade work at this building was completed three months ago. Why is the shed still up?
Once work is finished the architect or engineer has to inspect and crrtify that the work has been done properly and that any unsafe conditions have been remedied. Then the owner has to secure an appointment with the Department of Buildings to send an inspector. Once the City inspects, the building owner needs to address any concerns the City inspector has, and arrange for a reinspection. All this has to happen before the sidewalk shed comes down. And much of the delay is under the control of the City, not the owner.
I live in the building across the street, where they just put up a new shed. They are now working on my building, which was just “finished” a couple of years ago. They said they needed to work on the roof. But, and shockingly, they found more to do. They always do. Now they’re talking three years. Any wagers on how long the shed stays up? It is a massively corrupt system and we all know it. It started out as a tragedy, quickly went to a political overreaction, and blossomed into a racket run by a grotesque union of civil and commercial special interests. It’s one of the biggest construction industries in New York- and for what? Between the pollution they create, the hazards they erect, the noise, and just the overall depressing soul sucking effects they have on our overall quality of life – why on earth do New Yorkers live like this?
Had you extended your visit in the lobby you might have noticed that both service elevators have been shut down as unsafe by the City. And not even any “apologies for the inconvenience”!
Great use of the word “swathed”. Kudos
These sheds are so dangerous. Take them down. Buildings can be inspected with drones.
at this point this is the only way we can get old sheds taken down
We need to repeal and replace local law 11 with something that makes sense. Scaffolding is killing more people than ever died from facade issues. Not to mention workers who put up and take down the stuff, but no one seems to care about them. End the scaffolding scam ! netting, closed sidewalk (with pedestrians safely rerouted to the street with the added bonus of traffic calming) are all preferable to those green dangerous monstrosities out inept politicians have forced on us.
I was walking to Carneige Hall last week. I went down 9th and turned onto 57th. The entire block from 9th to 8th on both sides is covered. A homeless encampment has blossomed in front of shuttered stores. We definitely need more storms…as long as nobody gets hurt. They have turned NYC into tunnel land. It’s patently absurd.
A PERFECT example of why the regulations regarding sidewalk sheds need to be modified so they do not stay up for long periods of time. Although this one was up for ONLY two years, that is still too long. Or, at very least, there should be methods of “anchoring” shed so that even strong winds cannot do this kind of thing.
It’s a good thing so one was injured or killed.
This shed has been up since 2022
There’s plenty of room in the street alongside parked cars for pedestrians to walk. On nice days I avoid the dark, disgusting scaffolded sidewalks and walk in the street If there were hundreds of people all over the Upper West Side doing this every day, perhaps the city would speed up their efforts to rid us of the permanent-construction-zone appearance of our neighborhood
This is actually illegal. It is against the law to walk in the street when a sidewalk is present. It is also putting yourself at great risk from cars driving by. You are trading one risk for another, and I’m not sure the trade is in your favor.
That’s my car 🙁
Several years ago, my car car was parked on the corner of 102nd and Riverside. In a wind gust a huge piece of wood crashed the back of my car causing much damage. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
The scaffolding company paid for the damage. They also switched to netting for the upright barriers. The wind can then go through the netting with less likelihood of taking down solid pieces.
Better design is needed, especially for locations like RSD that are windy.
And yes, statistically more people, both workers and pedestrians have been injured or killed by scaffolding accidents.
It is time for the city to review the necessity and act responsibly.
I was in Chicago recently where there are MANY brick buildings, some built after the 1871 fire. I did not see one scaffold anywhere. What kind of con is at play in NYC where all these eyesore are tolerated by city “”government?”
Reaction to people getting killed from falling masonry.
Mother Nature sharing her opinion on sidewalk shed?
We all HATE them. Except, of course, when it is raining…