City Inaction in Action: The Curious Case of 143 Huron

Anyone that reads GL probably has a sense that Greenpont is one of the frontier areas of development and construction in New York City, a sort of Wild Western Edge of Brooklyn where virtually anything goes and the Department of Buildings seemingly fears to tread. Anyone that wants to read up, can head over to this item on New York Shitty about 143 Huron Street, a development that is subjecting its neighbors to construction at all hours. The building has logged 23 complaints at the Department of Buildings, some of which have resulted in violations and, even, a short-lived Stop Work Order. The neighbors, however, say they're suffering for days on end from loud construction work late into the night. When it happens, they say, there is utterly no timely response from the Department of Buildings, the city agency whose job it is to enforce laws meant to protect their quality of life and safety.

Here are some excerpts from an email from our Greenpoint correspondent:

Do you wanna know what time it is at 143 Huron? Wander around and BEAT A HAMMER ON SHEET METAL TIME!!! Right now they are standing in a circle watching the leader/alpha male beat the metal with a stick. And I am watching them and seething in impotent rage.

Words cannot describe how much I hate these people. Yesterday the contractors for the MTA fired everything up at 7 a.m., which is their right under the law. Next 157 Green decided to do a little work. Permit-less, until 7:00 p.m. That is against the law. 143 Huron worked until 9:30 p.m. This too, is against the law. That makes 14 1/2 hours of of non-stop noise.

She continues:

You can see (and hear) these assholes breaking the law plain as day and know full well nothing is going to be done about it...I am totally convinced [they have] enough connections to motivate the DOB to turn a blind eye to what they're doing. How else can you explain their outrageous conduct?

GL Analysis:
We do have a possible alternate explanation: the dangerous intersection of incompetence, a predisposition at the uppermost levels of city government to allow development to move forward regardless of collateral damage and a misallocation of resources that leaves the department dangerously short-handed. Whether it's influence peddling, incompetence or worse, however, this sort of callous failure to protect a community under seige by a number of developments is nothing short of a fundamental failure of both bureaucrats and elected officials. Even worse, 143 Huron is not an isolated case of how the system is failing. It is a very common scenario that can be found across Brooklyn from Greenpoint to Gravesend and Bay Ridge to Brighton Beach.