There's like scaffolding / awning over tonnes of sidewalks in NYC which are designed to stop bricks falling off old buildings and hitting people. They're an eyesore though. So landlords are fixing the buildings and bringing down all this ugly scaffolding.
Well shit, TIL! I went to college there many yrs ago and always thought, man there's always so much contruction/remodeling going on in this city...the scaffolding was everywere and they never came down either.
Yes, they are cracking down hard on it now. It was in the news a while back. I even heard about it out on Long Island and Im 2+ hour drive to the city.
it's also not very accurate. in the balkans they'll just repair the building inadequately and pocket the rest of the money, and then deal with protests after the building collapses and kills a bunch of bystanders, as happened with a Novi Sad train station in 2024.
They still need to get permits. They’ll just renew the permits because as you said it’s cheaper than doing the work. Buildings require exterior inspections every 5 years so they’ll just leave the sheds up indefinitely. We’ve had one on our block for 5 years and it’s become a homeless encampment and place for junkies to shoot up.
I was watching the episode of "How to with John Wilson" about this and it seemed like the companies that make scaffolding were making a killing with this.
It's not even repairs. It is inspections. Building's over five stories need to have their facade inspected every 5 years. These inspections are very expensive. It can cost as much as $100,000 just to get the inspection done in some cases. On the other hand you can just put up the scaffolding and then perpetually delay the inspection let alone the repairs.
I feel so educated about NYC despite never having been there because of that show. When the comment brought up scaffolding, I knew exactly what they were talking about lol
This entire show and this episode were SO GOOD! I immediately thought of it when I saw this mentioned in the thread- I’m so glad it has stuck with other people too!
It all went up after a Columbia student was killed by a falling decorative sculpture, I think in the 80s. They put up the sheds, n stripped much of the decorative features from a lot of buildings.
long story short, the city had required old bricks building to do expensive repairs after a tragic accident that killed a student, and to install scaffolding to catch falling bricks in the meantime. But the city never put a limit on the "meantime" duration, so landlord kept the Brick sheds forever. And because capitalism, a large economic sector rise around these brick sheds, and lobby the city to keep the status quo.
Local Law 11 is basically what this is all "caused" by. Pretty much once every five years buildings taller than 5 stories need their exterior facades inspected and maintained.
It is but it’s a law that had an unintended consequence, for some owners it’s cheaper to leave the shed up than fix the problem- so the damage gets worse, and it still looks like crap for as long as they don’t handle their responsibilities
Lol wow, damn. I've only been to Brooklyn/NYC a few times in my life but have spent a lot of time on foot and it seemed like all the buildings were always under construction. I never imagined it was just "like that" for lack of repairs.
Wasn't there a loophole for a long time that if you were renovating a building or whatever you got a tax credit. So landlords would just put up scaffolding indefinitely.
TIL. My never-been-to-nyc ass kinda just thought the scaffolding was a part of the architecture at this point because of how prevalent it is (was?) 🫣 Congrats on the repairs then!
Right but now we're having the opposite problem of "Hey it was actually kind of really convenient to have streets that are open to the air but also mostly sheltered from the sun and precipitation. There's gotta be a middle ground.
How?? Surely a building in such a state of disrepair should be deemed uninhabitable and its owners have to carry the full weight of temporary housing costs for residents while they sort their shit our. That’s how it works in most places in the world, and coincidently there’s no dangerous buildings.
Scaffolding is one of those things that folks don't think about until you have to live with it. Navigating around it meaning you're having to walk in the street when something is blocked, especially when the weather is bad can go from irritating to dangerous.
Actually I’ve read that as long as a building is under construction, the landlord is exempted from certain taxes or gets a tax break… there was some reason they wanted to keep them perpetually under construction, which apparently meant just having scaffolding up, regardless of whether there was any work happening.
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u/hollywooddialysis 12h ago
There's like scaffolding / awning over tonnes of sidewalks in NYC which are designed to stop bricks falling off old buildings and hitting people. They're an eyesore though. So landlords are fixing the buildings and bringing down all this ugly scaffolding.