4
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
The $500,000
sidewalk shed
12-year-old scaffolding costs taxpayers
$4,340 a month, with no work done
The city is spending big to leave sidewalks sheds around the courthouse in Downtown Brooklyn.
Photo by Aidan Graham
BY AIDAN GRAHAM
The city has spent more
than $1,000 every week
since 2007 to maintain
sidewalk sheds around a
Downtown Brooklyn courthouse
that’s cost taxpayers
roughly half a million dollars
— and construction
hasn’t even started yet!
The Brooklyn Supreme
Court Building at 360 Adams
St. has been surrounded
by the low-hanging
scaffolding since the
middle of George W. Bush’s
second term in offi ce, and
the city has been cutting
$4,340 checks to a private
contractor in monthly rent
ever since, according to a
spokesman with the Department
of Citywide Administrative
Services.
The scaffolding remains
in place to ensure that the
building complies with a
city law requiring sidewalk
sheds be erected around
buildings deemed to have
“an unsafe façade condition,”
thereby preventing
falling debris from squashing
hapless passersby until
repairs are made to the
building, according to a
spokesman with the Department
of Design and
Construction.
However, twelve years
and more than half a million
dollars into the boondoggle,
city building honchos
have taken only
preliminary steps to fi x the
building’s problems.
Reps with the Department
of Design and Construction
began to examine
the building’s fl aws in
April of this year, and construction
is not expected to
begin until 2021, according
to a spokesman with the
Department of Design and
Construction.
By that time, taxpayers
can expect to shell out
another roughly $70,000 in
rental fees for the scaffolding,
assuming prices stay
the same.
The law requiring the
city safeguard pedestrians
with sidewalk sheds fi rst
passed in 1979 in response
to the death of a college student
who was killed by a
falling chunk of masonry
in Manhattan. In 1998, City
Council strengthened those
regulations with Local Law
11 — also known as the Façade
Inspection and Safety
Program — that requires licensed
engineers to inspect
the façade of large buildings
every fi ve years.
One Brooklyn said he
wasn’t pleased to hear
about the exorbitant scaffolding
fees, but, then again,
he wasn’t exactly surprised
either.
“They probably could’ve
just fi xed it for the same
amount of money and been
done with it,” mused Park
Slope local Seb Campbell.
“But, that’s the city for
you.”
Another passerby complained
about congestion
caused by the construction
equipment.
“It makes it crowded
by the entrance because
there’s bars everywhere in
the center of the sidewalk,”
complained Cypress Hills
resident Tatiana White.
And while the costs continue
to pile up, the sidewalk
sheds create a gaping
eyesore around the prominent
Downtown edifi ce —
which sits at the foot of the
Brooklyn Bridge and is
fl anked by Borough Hall,
Camden Park, and two major
throughways.
“It’s like they just made
it part of the building,”
said White. “But, then you
should make it look better.”
First constructed in
1956, the courthouse building
was the brainchild of
architectural fi rm Shreve,
Lamb & Harmon — which
also masterminded the
iconic Empire State Building.
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