Good Old Lower East Side

Testimony at Mayor’s Oversight Commission on Department of Build

Jan 08, 2001

I am here to testify to the Mayor?’s Oversight Commission on the Department of Buildings on the condition of my building. I?’ve lived all my life in this building on the Lower East Side. In the last few years, my 84 year old mother and I have suffered at the hands of my landlord who is trying to drive us out. The landlord is gutting and renovating the building and he is making it as uncomfortable as possible so we will leave. For the first 18 days of the heat season we were not provided heat. Heat was only restored. And only after I called the police did we get heat, actually now there is so much heat it is suffocating us.

My building now shakes which it did not do prior to the start of the renovation of the building. This project has incurred five stop work orders. Yet with the signature of an architect or an engineer the landlord can start the work again. One group of non-licensed people is doing all the work with an electrician or plumber signing off.
At this time stud and wood work and repair and replacement of floor jousts and beams that are split and cracked is being done yet my building still shakes.

Since I have been living there, I was assaulted by one of the workers with a hammer and live with constant threats and harassment. In my building all the interior support partitions were removed at one time and left that way leaving the tenants in the occupied apartments worried that the building would fall down. Yet the Department of Buildings let them start work again. Four times the landlord was cited and received summons for the same thing, yet the landlord continued this dangerous work.

How do we resolve this. I would recommend that there should be two sets of rules set up at Department of Buildings for the big guys and little guys.

The big contractors can afford the licenses and competent workers to do
the work as it pays to do it right so the work is not halted with stop work orders. Whereas the small operators just want to do it cheap and fast. Therefore, they have decided that it is cheaper to get fines than to do it right and file permits properly. To stop this ?—Big Big fines should be established! And jail-time given to landlords who do not get proper permits.

My contractor at the building boasted that he has ten million dollar insurance. I don?’t care about the insurance!! All I know is if the building falls the owner gets my 84-year-old mother and I out and he gets a new building.

Finally, there should be no self-certifications by landlords as it leads to abuse and unsafe structures as in my building. Instead there should be more inspection and enforcement for repeat offenders.