Rental at 56 West 11th Street

I was going to go take a look at this building. But, when I googled the address, I found this info. Just an FYI for others. http://nycitylens.com/2014/10/house-full-of-trouble/ The tenants have gone for four months without gas, a functioning elevator, or access to the building’s laundry facilities. The tenants have also been exposed to lead due to continuing construction in the building. Is this... [more]

I was going to go take a look at this building. But, when I googled the address, I found this info. Just an FYI for others. http://nycitylens.com/2014/10/house-full-of-trouble/ The tenants have gone for four months without gas, a functioning elevator, or access to the building’s laundry facilities. The tenants have also been exposed to lead due to continuing construction in the building. Is this some building in one of New York’s poorest sections? Actually, no. It is at 56 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village. Built in 1912, the brownstone building sold for $18.5 million in 2013. It is nestled within the plush, picturesque 11th Street neighborhood, which also houses The New School. Further down the street, at 155 West 11th, several townhouses are being built. The building is located in the 10011 zip code, with a median household income of $87,372. “It is a weird situation,” said Cole Ragsdale, 24, a student who lives with his aunt in the nine-story building. “We can’t cook. We have to get microwavable food.” “We don’t have gas, we don’t have an elevator, we don’t have a laundry facility,” said another tenant, who spoke extensively but asked not to be identified. “It is horrible,” she said, as she came outside of the building, which is owned by Icon Management. She said the tenants had been involving elected officials to help solve their problems. But so far, she said, nothing has come of it. In a September 18, 2014 letter to the property owner’s attorneys, Kossoff, PLLC Attorneys at Law, Councilman Corey Johnson, who represents the area, said he was concerned with the troubles in the building. “The ongoing construction, which has caused the air to have high lead content, broken elevators, lack of gas service and an inaccessible super continue to be cause for significant concern,” the letter reads. The letter states that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene conducted an inspection on the building on September 5 and found that “there are high levels of lead in the air within the apartments tested and common spaces, too.” The councilman, in the letter, urged Icon to work towards improving the air quality and eradicate lead in the building, restore gas, and swiftly fix the elevator. “Four months of repairs is simply too long for people to rely on stairs alone,” the councilman wrote in the letter. Mitchell H. Kossoff, one of the Icon attorneys, who said he was authorized to speak for the building owner, told NY City Lens that various agencies had tested the building for lead and his client had not been cited for any violation in regards to lead exposure. “There is a protocol that has been followed,” he said. “We are in compliance.” [less]