How New York’s Aging Buildings Are Inspected

Good morning. It is Friday. In the wake of a building collapse in the Bronx, we’ll look at the inspections every building in New York City should undergo. We will also find out who will be the Republican nominee for the House of Representatives seat vacated by George Santos.

The partial collapse of a Bronx apartment building on Monday raised questions among renters, especially those in older buildings: What warning signs can residents look for — and what should they do if they see them?

The city’s Buildings Department “strongly encourages” anyone who suspects an unsafe condition in a building to call 311 unless it is an immediate emergency, such as falling rocks. In that case, a spokesperson said people should call 911 instead.

The department sends inspectors to check complaints to 311 that it deems high priorities – such as shaking, leaning or cracks in a building – on average within 4.8 hours. Inspectors respond to non-safety complaints, such as an elevator being out of service, on average within about 11 days, the department says.

In addition, inspections are conducted according to city schedules. Facades must be inspected every five years. Parking garages must be checked every six years, retaining walls every five years, gas pipe every four years, boilers annually and hitchhike twice a year.

But the city does not conduct the inspections. Meera Joshi, the deputy mayor for operations, said at a briefing that the city had more than a million buildings and “500 inspectors, so we will never, boots on the ground, reach every building.” It depends on engineers or other specialists hired by building owners.

Facade inspections

The collapse of the Bronx once again underscored the limited oversight of its aging infrastructure. The engineer overseeing that building had declared the facade unsafe in 2020, but repairs were delayed by the pandemic. The engineer, Richard Koenigsberg, said on Monday that the collapse was “certainly unforeseeable as a result of not carrying out the work earlier”.

Just over 15,700 buildings must comply with Local Law 11, as is known from the current law that makes facade inspections mandatory. The city has required periodic inspections of apartment building facades for four decades, ever since a Barnard College student was killed by masonry falling from a building on West 115th Street.

Construction inspections should be strict. Inspectors sometimes tour the outside of buildings on hanging scaffolding that resembles window-washing installations. Sometimes they abseil down from the roof, like a mountain climber on the way home.

Inspectors can even drill into walls to see what’s behind the veneer.

Their findings are sent to the Buildings Department, which conducts a field inspection: a visual check with binoculars and a camera with a telephoto lens.

Also parapet inspections in 2024

From next year, property owners will have to arrange inspections of parapets – the parts of a building that rise above the roofline.

These inspections do not need to be performed by an engineer or licensed construction professional. They can be carried out by a building inspector, a handyman or someone from the construction industry, or by an architect.

The parapet inspection report does not need to be sent to the Buildings Department, but an owner must make it available if the agency requests it.

Stephen Varone, an architect who is president of RAND Technology & Architecture, a consultancy, said the parapet inspection would be the first for buildings such as four- and five-storey walk-ups. The facade law only applies to buildings larger than six shops.

He also noted that the facade law only concerns the exterior of a building. No check for damaged columns or sloping floors is required.

“There is no law that requires your building to be inspected everywhere,” he said. “That is the missing link here. There is no comprehensive structural inspection, a la what they instituted in Florida. We are an over-regulated city, but there is nothing wrong here.”

Also new: Garage inspections

Following the collapse of a Florida condominium in 2021, the city announced an inspection requirement for parking structures. More recently, a garage in Lower Manhattan collapsed, killing one person and injuring five others, and officials quickly identified dozens of garages with potential hazards.

The inspection requirement now requires 1,020 garages in Lower Manhattan, Midtown and the Upper West Side to submit inspection reports by the end of the year.

All other garages in the city have more time, but must conduct a less stringent visual inspection and report the results to the Buildings Department by August next year.

Full reports on garages in Brooklyn and the rest of Manhattan are expected late next year. Garages in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island have until 2027 to file their first reports.

“We’ve all seen garages with rusted steel and giant water stains; none of that is kosher,” says Varone of RAND Engineering. “Some of the conditions we see should have been repaired years ago.”

Weather

Enjoy sunshine and temperatures that are warmer than recent days, with highs in the mid-50s. At night it cools down with a minimum temperature around 40 degrees.

ALTERNATE PARKING

In force until December 25 (Christmas Day).

The latest New York news

Mazi Melesa Pilip, the Republican candidate running for the House of Representatives seat vacated by George Santos, has little political experience.

She has not taken public positions on major issues like abortion rights or gun laws that have shaped other recent House elections, aside from fierce advocacy for Israel and support for police.

And like her opponent in the Feb. 13 special election to fill the Queens and Long Island seat, she is a registered Democrat.

But Republican leaders believe Pilip has the potential to become a breakout star.

They plan to introduce her today in Massapequa, two weeks after the House of Representatives voted to expel Santos over findings that he fabricated his life story and deceived voters.

Pilip was born in Ethiopia and was a paratrooper in the Israeli army. She first ran for the Nassau County Legislature in 2021 and vowed to fight anti-Semitism. Now she will face the Democratic nominee for the House of Representatives seat – Tom Suozzi, a fixture in Long Island politics since the 1990s, former congressman, Nassau County executive and candidate for governor. Analysts call the race a toss-up.

Pilip has distanced herself from Santos, with whom she once campaigned together described as a ‘great’ friend. Republicans who endorsed her twice in elections for the Nassau County Legislature knew she was registered as a Democrat. They say that was “irrelevant”.

Dylan tapes don’t sell

The tapes of Bob Dylan’s first album, which we wrote about on Monday in New York Today, have not been sold at auction. Guernseysthe Manhattan auction house, which had said the tapes could fetch as much as $1.2 million, said there were no bids above the pre-set threshold of $200,000.

The album ‘Bob Dylan’ was released on the Columbia label. A spokeswoman for Sony Music Entertainment, of which Columbia is now a subsidiary, noted that the tapes in question — which a sculptor now living in Detroit has owned since the 1960s — are not unique copies and that the original scrolls have not been lost gone. The Sony Music archives contain the original versions.

METROPOLITAN diary

Seatmate

Dear Diary:

To the little boy who sat next to me on the subway that day: we squeezed in next to each other when I had to find a seat. I saw you looking at my phone.

You saw me writing a poem between Chambers and 14th Streets, and updating my shopping list between 14th and 34th.

Once I knew I had a captive audience, I played a spelling game for the rest of my trip.

Thanks for nodding when I got the pangram.

– Bellajeet Sahota