GL Construction Site Du Jour: Public Safety Menace 489 Driggs

In all our wandering around and taking note of open fences and gates at construction and demolition sites, we have rarely seen a site as nasty as the demolition at 489 Driggs (aka 199-211 N. 9th) in Williamsburg. The building is part of a big demolition and future development that will include about two-thirds of the square block bounded by Driggs and Roebling and N. 9th and N. 10th Streets. The end result will be a seven-story building with 173 condos designed by the Number One Williamsburg Architect, Karl Fischer. We previously featured an open fence issue at 208 N. 10th, but that was nothing compared to yesterday's wide open semi-demolished warehouse. In that sense, today's "Construction Site Du Jour" could actually be our Construction Site of the Year.

We ran some "Demolition Porn" photos of the site on Friday, which we'd shot through the window of the building. We were wandering by yesterday morning, when we found the fence wide open and the partly collapsed building totally accessible to anyone stupid or drunk enough to wander in. We are not talking about a big hole and some construction equipment here. As you can see in the photos, the site in question is a partly collapsed building. This is not to be confused with the Sunday construction work we found in the neighborhood here and here. We will make a bold statement and suggest that if any employees of the Department of Buildings are on the job on Sundays, it might pay them to drive around Williamsburg sometime. A lazy Seeing Eye Dog could find a ton of serious violations without even panting.