Report on the MacDonough Street Calamity
This afternoon, HDC went to the Brooklyn Supreme Court to hear what’s going on with the damaged buildings in Stuyvesant Heights. At 5am on Wednesday morning, the cellar party wall connecting 329 and 331 MacDonough Street in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District partially collapsed due to construction activity in the cellar of 329. Once the Department of Buildings investigated, they issued a vacate order to the occupants of 331 MacDonough (5 units) and the owner of 329 MacDonough and filed for an emergency demolition order for the two properties. This was originally reported on Brownstoner and news rapidly spread. The owner of 329 MacDonough immediately filed for a Temporary Restraining Order on the DOB and the case (about whether to lift the order) was heard today.
It is important to know that although the buildings are in the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District, the Department of Buildings has the authority to supersede the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s oversight in an emergency public safety situation. The LPC reached out to HDC early on Thursday to let us know about the situation, but unfortunately, it was entirely in the hands of DOB, who had decided that demolition of the two buildings was the only option. We then spent several hours talking with neighbors and local officials (Councilmember Al Vann lives on the block but is unfortunately currently out of the country although we have spoken with him). We also called our colleagues at The New York Landmarks Conservancy to see if they might be able to lend their technical expertise (the Conservancy’s Historic Properties Fund has been very active in the neighborhood).
At the hearing, DOB’s Chief Forensic Engineer Timothy Lynch testified that the collapse had profoundly undermined the building and created an unpredictable and unstable condition which was a public safety and worker safety concern. Mr. Lynch had spent several hours at the site and was emphatic in his descriptions of possible catastrophic building failure. For what it’s worth, HDC saw photos of the collapse taken by residents and the damage did not look as extensive as Mr. Lynch described but we are not engineers nor have we visited the site. To add to the uncertainty, both Mr. Lynch and residents reported that there were almost no signs of damage in the upper walls and floors – a condition which Mr. Lynch characterized as the building’s “load” being jammed between the stoop and the rear extension. There was a lot of description about the weight-load of the buildings migrating which was really quite fascinating, but I couldn’t do it justice and I don’t want to describe it incorrectly. Imagine a water balloon being juggled to get a sense of the inevitable calamity which Mr. Lynch was predicting. DOB was steadfast in wanting the judge to lift the TRO and let them start the demolition process.
On the other side, the owner’s lawyer (whose name I didn’t get) asked Judge Bert Bunyan to continue the TRO and allow them to get a structural engineer in to determine if preservation of the buildings was at all possible, the only engineers who thus far had inspected were from DOB. The lawyer further stated that these buildings were landmarks and efforts should be made to preserve them if at all possible. Judge Bunyan asked John Weiss, LPC’s Deputy Counsel, for his opinion on the matter, but Mr. Weiss demurred, reminding the judge that under statute, the DOB could supersede the LPC’s authority in these situations. When the judge further questioned Mr. Weiss about what LPC’s engineers thought about this, Mr. Weiss reported that LPC did not have an engineer on staff and looked to DOB’s expertise to make such determinations.
Judge Bunyan decided that the TRO should stand until Monday afternoon to allow the owner to have his engineers inspect the site and propose an alternative plan. The alternative plan will then be submitted to DOB by Monday morning in order for it to be evaluated in time for the continued hearing on the TRO on Monday afternoon. DOB agreed to allow access to the site on Saturday morning – the Landmarks Conservancy is hoping to get a representative from Robert Silman Associates (an engineering firm specializing in historic buildings and HDC’s 2006 Landmarks Lion) to evaluate the site. In return, the owners will continue to monitor the site and DOB will be allowed to extend the temporary wooden barricade that has been erected to better shield passersby in a worse-case-scenario of a sudden building collapse.
To be continued….
For more background, see today’s article in the Daily News.