There is progress to report about the “Third World Dump” created by a development mess on long-suffering N. 11 Street and Roebling in Williamsburg. (In fact, there are so many construction sites in the area that some days several pile drivers are going at once at sites a few blocks apart creating a most interesting [...]

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“Around 11 a.m. Monday, a bucket of wet cement fell from a scaffolding at 66 Court St. and crushed a Department of Environmental Protection vehicle. The roof was destroyed and the windows were shattered on the Toyota Prius. A pedestrian was taken away in an ambulance with an eye injury sustained from flying debris…In a [...]

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This year’s edition of the Giglio Feast in Williamsburg will be more surrounded by construction than usual. In fact, it’s fair to say it will be nearly hemmed in by construction on the north and northwest in what we’ve called the Williamsburg Triangle of Death because of its wide open construction and demolition sites that [...]

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Okay, it’s not called the BOG Building, but that’s what we’re calling 35 Havemeyer Street, because part of the site was, until recently, the outdoor dining area of the Brick Oven Gallery, one of our favorite little spots in Williamsburg. The Brick Oven Gallery now has tables outside on Havemeyer and the lot is going [...]

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Given the fact that we always enjoy a focus on construction safety, there’s something compelling about this YouTube vid that shows two-by-fours crashing down in South Williamsburg. Heads up.

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A number of civic and neighborhood groups had a press event at City Hall yesterday to push an agenda to reform the embattled Department of Buildings. Among other things, the groups called for an end to “self-certification,” a Giuliani-Era program that allows architects and engineers to certify that their plans comply with zoning and other [...]

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The Department of Buildings has filed internal administrative charges against architect Robert Scarano, alleging that he made false or misleading statements on applications for buildings at 158 Freeman Street and at 1037 Manhattan Avenue. Mr. Scarano is alleged to have improperly divided a zoning lot into two smaller lots for the two new buildings. Acting [...]

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“A Long Island contractor faces manslaughter charges in connection with a deadly construction site collapse in Brooklyn earlier this year. Acting Department of Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri says the indictment should serve as a message that shoddy construction will be prosecuted. According to the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, William Lattarulo was indicted today on manslaughter, [...]

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“A building contractor is facing possible murder charges on Wednesday for a Brooklyn construction accident that killed a worker and injured another in March when a foundation wall collapsed. ‘I think maybe it will be manslaughter,’ contractor William Lattarulo said Tuesday as he prepared to surrender to prosecutors this morning. Lattarulo, 63, blamed heavy rains [...]

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The former vacant lot between N. 11 & N. 12 Streets in Williamsburg that was most recently a parking lot and was, for a time in its history, a paint factory, is now a construction site where a large Karl Fischer building (eight stories, 180 units) will be rising. The construction fencing went up last [...]

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Last week, we posted photos of a scary situation at 40 Berry Street in Williamsburg, where a luxury rental building partly bankrolled by Lehman Brothers and the California State Teachers Retirement System is going up. A shoddy wooden fence opening to a two story drop into a mud pit was ajar, dirt was crumbling into [...]

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It has been a long time since we checked in on the infamous South Slope Crack Building (officially known as 406 15th Street). It got that name because construction work so destabilized a neighboring building two years ago that people had to be evacuated. For a long time, buildings had “crack monitors” to see if [...]

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There is little that we see in the wild world of Williamsburg construction that surprises us. But the gaping void beyond the fence at 40 Berry Street (aka 34 Berry Street) managed to take our breath away. Right behind a gate, there is a two-story drop into a mud pit. The sidewalk is cracked from [...]

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We do enjoy a construction fence that has been busted down (and many in Williamsburg can be opened by a 12-year-old) to allow access to a deadly building demolition site. So it is with 261 N. 9 Street this week, which is one of the sites in Williamsburg being developed by an owner of the [...]

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This is 208 N. 10 Street, one of the consistently dangerous construction sites in the area we call the Williamsburg Triangle of Death because of the large number of treacherous construction and demolition sites whose hazards are rarely addressed by the Department of Buildings. (The site is a huge property between Driggs and Robeling and [...]

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The two buildings on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint in the photo above do not appear to be leaning because of barreling or other lens distortion. They are actually leaning somewhat and would appear to have been in such condition for some time. The lot with the pretty purple fence in between is 602 Manhattan Avenue, [...]

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This site at 239 N. 9 Street, which is the future site of a Karl Fischer-designed condo, has been such a dangerous horror show for so long that we’re thinking of awarding it a LiMandri Cup, in honor of the acting head of the Department of Buildings. Over the last couple of months, we’ve found [...]

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It has been a long time since we’ve been able to post about the dangerous conditions at this hollowed out shell of a building at N. 4 Street and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. The building has been in this condition for almost three years. For a while, the fence was regularly open or blown over, [...]

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We found so many nasty, open demolition and construction sites in Williamsburg yesterday that we’re going to have to space them out through the week lest we have to have a “construction only” morning. We’re going to start out the Days of Potential Maiming and Death with this horror show at 156 N. 12 Street. [...]

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We’re always interested in complaints about and tales of construction work going on at all hours. So it is with 602 Manhattan Avenue in Greepoint. We got this short email from a reader:
On this property at 602 Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint work goes on until 10:30 PM , as well as Saturdays. There are no permits [...]

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Demolition is underway on the site of a new hotel planned for Third Avenue between Douglass and Butler Streets. As reported by Brownstoner a couple of weeks ago, the hotel will be a Fairfield Inn. DOB records show that it will be a nine-story building with 134 rooms. The interesting thing is that when we [...]

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So, now that Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster has resigned, will the Department of Buildings do its job any more effectively or efficiently? Actually, it’s highly unlikely without systemic reform. Ms. Lancaster had become a lightening rod for criticism in the wake of the hideous crane collapse in Manhattan last month and the Department had been [...]

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We thought that the perennial shit show at 33 Roebling Street was done when a serious metal fence took the place of the wretched wooden crap that had been falling over every time a car went up N. 10 Street at more than 15 MPH. We were wrong. The expensive metal one does no good [...]

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DOB Commissioner Patricia Lancaster who has faced increasing criticism in the wake of very high profile construction accidents this year, has resigned. Mayor Bloomberg made the announcement, saying that “Over the past six years, Patricia has moved the Department of Buildings a long way forward by fighting corruption, strengthening inspections and oversight, increasing the public’s [...]

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Yesterday’s Construction Site Du Jour was a Karl Fischer building and so is today’s. This Pit of Death at 120 S. 4 Street is a building site that hasn’t been touched in so long that its foundation has become nicely tagged up. (The site was originally cleared and excavated a loong time ago and it’s [...]

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