Residents Fear Resumption of Pile Driving

By Carl Glassman
POSTED OCT. 2, 2006

Her apartment shook so, that Marcy Brafman thought she might be experiencing her first earthquake. In Vincent Lacata’s Greenwich Street loft, vases fell from shelves. Around the corner on Watts Street, Arne Svenson watched items slide across a table “like ‘Poltergeist.’”

That was in August, when test pilings were pounded for two days at the triangular site at Greenwich and Canal Streets. Nearby residents feared that the work would compromise the structural integrity of their 19th century buildings, and maybe endanger their lives. “This was not your garden variety annoyance,” said Brafman, who lives across from the site at 472 Greenwich St. “This was a threat to our building.”

Just the two days of pile driving caused cracks in three apartments, according to Noel Dennis, a lawyer representing a group of neighbors around the site. An engineering report commissioned by one of the buildings said that “excessive vibrations which could occur [from additional pile driving] will likely cause damage” to the building.

As of late last month, the developer had not said when pile driving would start up again at 475 Greenwich Street, where foundation work has begun on a new eight-story condominium apartment house called the Zinc Building. Fabian Friedland, a partner in the project along with Douglaston Development, said a meeting was planned between engineers for the developer and the residents.

“We have to lower their level of concern,” said Friedland, who has bought and sold several properties in Tribeca  and lives with his family near the site. “The appropriate way to do that is to have their professional talk to our professional because it is very technical stuff.”

Friedland began as the project’s lone developer and ushered it through a long approval process that required a variance from the Board of Standards and Appeals. He won the neighbors’ enthusiastic support by meeting with them two years ago and making concessions over the height and bulk of the building. For his efforts, he also gained praise, rare for a developer, from Community Board 1.

“Aside from asking Fabian to dig the foundation himself, I don’t know what more he could do,” Bruce Ehrmann, a member of CB1, said at the time.

Last month, the tone of the board was quite different, as neighbors spoke out about their fears. They also asserted that Friedland had misled the board with promises to use “auger” or screw-in piles instead of the type that are pounded. (The Port Authority required auger piles on a part of the site because of its location over the Holland Tunnel.) Friedland denies he made that commitment. A resloution passed by the board called on the developers to use an alternate “safer” method to install the piles.

In August, the Department of Buildings temporarily halted the test pile driving because the developer had not complied with city code that requires monitoring vibrations to buildings in landmark districts that are within 90 feet. Residents in buildings just outside the Tribeca North Historic District say their buildings, too, should be monitored.

“So our building falls down but it’s not landmarked,” said Hal Freedman, of 474 Greenwich St. “They have some responsibility here.”

Friedland asserted that the developers are being held to unusual standards. “My understanding is that this is not the wild west,” he said. “There is pile driving going on safely all over the city and all over the neighborhood. Even adjacent to historic buildings. The Buildings Department, who are monitoring the project closely, have very strict guidelines.”

But Friedland is distancing himself from his partners, saying Douglaston Development is now in control. “Any influence I have in construction practices is now limited,” he said, and referred questions about the construction to a Douglaston executive, who did not respond to a call for comment.