688 10th Avenue

Our building had a gas leak that was probably only found out about due to the (attempted) opening of a new restaurant below our building (that is an interesting story for another time and directly related to this post). The gas system here has no doubt been leaking for years with no attention. The owner of the building is "E&W Realty" aka Elizabeth Wolf hailing from far away Queens NY. We have lived here at 688 for not quite one year now but I gleaned from discussions with most of the other long term tenants (10-17 years tenancy) that she has been less than helpful with problems ranging from insects, bedbugs, heat, and noise from the commercial restaurant units on the first floor. She sounds like your sweet grandmotherly figure on the phone but I speak to her less these days as Metropolitan Property Services, Inc. is now running point as building management. Previously people spoke directly with E&W when problems would arise... and from the history of the building shown by the NYC.gov buildings webste... problems sure did arise! Any 20 unit walkup apartment in New York City is going to have a checkered past of some sort and I am sure this building is no worse than any other hells kitchen apartment of similar size and condition. Farther up 10th ave between 49th and 52nd there are some apartments on the East side of the street that would no doubt make our building seem like a palace.


Here are a sampling of the complaints gleaned from the super helpful website at the buildings section of the nyc.gov website http://bit.ly/f5XqMG


"Category Code: 65 GAS HOOK-UP/PIPING - ILLEGAL OR DEFECTIVE"
30 BUILDING SHAKING/VIBRATING/STRUCT STABILITY AFFECTED



---
43 STRUCTURAL STABILITY AFFECTED

Overview for Complaint #:1253450 = RESOLVED
Complaint at: 688 10 AVENUE BIN: 1026580 Borough: MANHATTAN ZIP: 10019
Re: CLR STS THAT THEY WERE DOING STRUCTURAL WORK AT LOCATION AND NOT THE BUILDING IS SAGGING. CLR STS THAT THEY ARE SPLT BEAMS, ELECTRICAL WIRES HANGING AND THE BUILDING MAY COLLAPSE AT ANYTIME

Category Code: 10 DEBRIS/BUILDING -FALLING OR IN DANGER OF FALLING

this one (code 43) is a little disturbing and I still wonder about the veracity of the claim it is resolved... from my trips to the basement with Thomas Vicari (Owner of a Casa Havana for more info on Thomas's public battles as a restauranter read the links below!) I've been shown first hand the sad state of the structural beams in the basement. Rot and termites have done a number on them over time.
http://bit.ly/fYmd49
http://bit.ly/i6IIsu

Wish us luck! We can't wait until our gas is turned back on so I can use our stove and oven once again. We are currently fighting to keep our rent from being raised while we have no use of our gas stove. It will take months of construction to fix the gas system in our building and we have already been without gas for 2 months. \