By Gus Saltonstall
One of the Upper West Side’s most imposing sidewalk sheds is no more.
The sidewalk shed and scaffolding came down in full over the past few days at The Astor building at 2139 Broadway, between West 75th and 76th streets.
The 522-foot sidewalk shed covered the entire block on the west side of Broadway, and also wrapped around the corner toward West End Avenue on both streets. It was a “heavy-duty” sidewalk shed, meaning that it had thicker stanchions and roofing than typical equipment, which created the sensation of walking through a tunnel when you were on the block.
Scaffold nets came close to completely encasing the Broadway-facing portion of The Astor’s facade.
There had been a sidewalk shed on the Broadway block for more than 12 years. 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.
In February 2026, the Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector for The Astor told the Rag that the work at the building was expected to be completed this June. On October 3, a permit was filed with the city for an “alteration” to a sidewalk shed at the address, which is typical for when scaffolding is about to be removed.
There are no permits as of October 15 that indicate a sidewalk shed is expected to go back up in the near future.
Workers loaded the shed away on Wednesday afternoon.
Here is the difference in how the sidewalk on Broadway, between West 75th and 76th streets, looks without the shed.
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.
Over the years, multiple readers have mentioned the homeless encampments on the block to West Side Rag. On Wednesday, there was no sign of an encampment.
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Oh, yay!!!
awesome, cya ethan
How ironic! I JUST passed under this a day or two ago and wondered when the heck it would finally come down.
As an aside, I wonder what will happen with the homeless people in the encampment that it was protecting. They were actually a well-behaved bunch, and had an actual “leader” of sorts who kept things calm and (mostly) clean.
He seems to have moved a half-block up and is now camped out across from the eyeglass store, closer to the street.
TWELVE years. Insane and never should’ve been allowed to happen. For now, the homeless man has moved his encampment half a block to Broadway between 76th and 77th, but he will presumably seek out another scaffolding soon enough