Solution Sought For Leaning Building

By Carl Glassman
POSTED FEBRUARY 1, 2008

Two months after the city deemed the leaning landmark building at 287 Broadway unsafe to occupy, its residents and small business owners still could not return, and a way to ensure its safety had yet to be approved.

On Jan. 31, engineers for the developer of a new high-rise next door, where the demoliton and excavation on the adjoining lot led to the dangerous tilting, submitted a revised report to the Department of Buildings on the condition of the structure.

In an e-mail to the Trib, DOB spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said an earlier engineering report was “deficient” in its wind load, soil and structural analysis of the now free-standing building.

“The developer’s engineer must demonstrate that all variables have been considered,” she said of the report, which the DOB must approve before the developer can permanently shore the building.

The Chicago-based developer, the John Buck Company, did not return calls requesting comment.

A Nov. 29 inspection found that the 1872 cast iron building, at the southwest corner of Broadway and Reade Street, was leaning nine inches to the south. The developer, whose new 20-story building will wrap around the landmark to Reade Street, had erected a temporary wooden structure that must be replaced with steel.

Some residents have moved out for good; others have found temporary housing elsewhere but remain in the dark about how long it will be before they can return, if ever.

“Everyone has settled into limbo,” said one tenant, who asked not to be identified. “What’s frustrating is that no one seems to know the plan to fix the situation.”

Kenneth Dubow, property manager for the owners, Century Realty, said he is as much in the dark as the tenants, and shares their frustration. “I’m not getting the answers I want, because there are so many unknowns,” he said, adding that he is confident that the Buildings Department is doing all it can.

Learning from management that he had a brief opportunity to move his possessions to safer ground, Joe Horovitz and some friends last month were carrying a couch, projector screen, computers and chairs down the narrow, dark stairway and into a rented van.

“At first they told us it would be a two-week thing,” said Horovitz, 25, a venture capitalist who has lived in the building for three years. “Now here I am with hardly any notice emptying my stuff out. I don’t expect to be coming back.”

Across the hall, another tenant, who asked that her name not be used, was also  moving out. Century Realty had found her an apartment in another of its Lower Manhattan properties. She recalled the intense vibrations the building suffered during the excavation. “When I set down a glass it would start shaking,” she said. “I felt like I was in a boat.”

The tenant said the developer should shoulder most of the blame, but she faulted the owners for being unresponsive to her concerns. 

“I called the landlord about the cracks that appeared in my walls, and they came in and put drywall over them, but didn’t do anything else about it.”

Dubow called such claims “offensive.”

“There are cracks and there are cracks,” he said. “The Buildings Department engineers said everything was [fine] until it wasn’t fine and then they took appropriate action.”

With no electricity in the building, movers had strung extension wires and worklights up the long stairways to help them as they moved the tenants out. All around were signs of disrepair. A loosely attached banister, holes in the ceiling, flaking paint on walls and ceilings, torn, dusty linoleum floors. 

In a vacant apartment downstairs, the Buildings Department had installed a meter to track the widening of an imposing crack in the western wall.

Meanwhile, the vacated commercial spaces on the ground floor remain suspended in time. “Thank you and see you soon!!!” says a note of apology on the window of the shuttered shoe repair shop, whose owner, Luis Guaman, is now desperate to return to work. (See story, page 4.) Christmas decorations adorn the pizza shop next door that had just opened six month before.

“They destroyed the business,” said David Jaroslawicz, lawyer for the owner, the Yenem Corp. Jaroslawicz said it is unlikely that his client, who had installed all new kitchen equipment and heating and air conditioning in the space, can recoup the losses, which he estimates to be $2.5 million, including the value of a favorable lease. Jaroslawicz is suing the John Buck Company, but said a settlement could be years away.

In the meantime, he doubts the building will ever be safe to inhabit again, adding that he believes it may be a disaster waiting to happen.

“You got a building leaning over that you know has been structurally undermined,” he said. “How do you permit the street not to be closed?”

According to the Department of Buildings, located across Broadway from the tilting landmark, monitors have not measured “significant” movement since the structure was vacated and does not present a danger. The DOB’s spokeswoman said that the building had settled three to four inches before excavation began, and tilted another three to four inches from the excavation.

A source at Hunter-Atlantic, the Manhattan-based company that performed the excavation, said its work was “on the up and up.” The source, who asked not to be identified, said his engineer’s plans for underpinning the building had been approved by the city. “But because the soil didn’t react the way we thought it would we stopped it.” He said another contractor for the owner tried grouting, or compacting the soil underneath the foundation.

“It didn’t work,” he said. “The building continued to move.”

As for the reason that it is tilting? “It’s hard to say what’s destabilized a building that old,” he said. “It never had to stand on its own in its life.”

Nick Pinto contributed reporting to this article.

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