Things Going Bump in the Night at 340 Court

We got three emails yesterday from three different people last night and in the very early hours of this morning about goings on at 340 Court Street. It appears that workers doing asbestos removal continue to toil late into the night. One neighbor reports five men "tossing construction debris" off the roof into a dumpster at midnight. Another neighbor emailed to say the same thing. Here is the first email:

We went out at 6pm tonight (Saturday), to the sounds of construction at the corner of Court and Union in Carroll Gardens, and are now home at 11:59pm, enjoying the periodic boom of about 5 guys tossing construction debris off the roof of the building across the street into a metal dumpster. You'd think the n'hood opposition to the building so far would have made the developer a little more sensitive...I've called 311 and the local precinct, for what it's worth.

The other email said, "Disturbing my sleep is one thing, but tossing asbestos around like that?"

We saw another email that said the Department of Environmental Protection responded to a 311 call and our special Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Correspondent sent in the photo above of air monitoring machines in back of the building. We don't know if these are newly-installed or have been there throughout the process.

In the same vein about concerns in the neighborhood about what is going on at the Clarett Group project, a couple of comments left by GL readers are also of interest:

I live nearby and routinely see shadowy figures leaving the building and driving out of the parking lot at midnight. It's a very sketchy scene. I can only assume they've begun the demolition and asbestos removal in the dark of night...that or they're having some great poker games in an empty building.

And this:

I live adjacent to the project - they seem to be doing all of the asbestos transfer to the enclosed dumpster from 11:00pm on through the night.

As an Architect who deals with construction issues on a day-to-day basis, this is a perfect example of sneaking around and questionable business practices. There does not seem to be work going on during the day that would necessitate a "night shift" due to trade conflicts.

Unless a tight deadline requires a 24 hour shift, the only reason to do the work at night is to avoid drawing attention to what's going on and begs the question: What exactly IS going on?

We're not sure whether the complaints about noisy midnight work tweaking the neighborhood quality of life or the bags of unknown debris being tossed off the roof in dark of night are more compelling. Both are equally interesting in an "I wouldn't want to live near this (possibly dangerous) mess" kind of way. It would appear there are some serious questions and/or fears about how a potentially deadly substance is being handled right in the middle of Carroll Gardens.