Editorial
Rebuild NYCHA from
the foundation up
When constructed between the 1940s and 1960s, the public housing complexes
that the New York City Housing Authority erected were, at the
very least, solidly built, with the modern amenities of its era.
But 50-70 years of wear, tear and age on anything renders quite a toll — especially
upon structures that have been constantly neglected over the decades, as NYCHA
buildings have been.
We heard from Public Advocate Jumaane Williams that more than 300,000 NYCHA
work orders remain outstanding. The massive backlog, and NYCHA’s trend of
dysfunction and ignorance, led Williams to once again deem the housing authority as
the city’s worst landlord.
Now the Steamfi tters Local 638 has weighed in on NYCHA with its own report
about the real infrastructure threat faced in just about every one of its buildings, but
often taken for granted: plumbing.
The union’s analysis concluded that aging pipes in NYCHA structures are the root
cause of just about every major malfunction or problem a public housing tenant in this
city faces — mold, leaks, heating outages, chief among them.
The report was quick to point out that NYCHA’s $600 million effort to replace
boilers won’t mean anything if the pipes are allowed to rot and fail within the walls.
The situation is akin to a cardiologist ordering open heart surgery to remove blood
clots from a patient’s legs.
But if pipes are the key problem, as the union asserts, the city will likely need to
spend even more than $600 million to replace pipes throughout their structures.
That’s on top, of course, of the tens of millions required to fi x other problems in aging
NYCHA buildings.
In April, the de Blasio administration announced plans to demolish two towers at
the Fulton Houses for the development of mixed-income housing. That’s a good fi rst
step, in our view — and a precedent for the future of the city.
It would be wise for the de Blasio administration, and its successors, to expand
upon the program and usher in a new era for public housing in New York.
It will take at least a decade, perhaps longer, to complete — but the end result must
provide all residents with safe homes equipped with reliable, up-to-date technology.
More and more, it seems that the best way to fi x NYCHA’s problems is to start over.
Publisher of The Villager, Villager Express, Chelsea Now,
Downtown Express and Manhattan Express
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VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
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In recent years, it seems like there is construction wherever you turn in
Greenwich Village and throughout Manhattan. But this may be a case where
everything old is new again, as this Con Edison ad in the Sept. 3, 1959 issue
of The Villager seemingly addresses peoples’ complaints about frequent
construction and digging. It partly reads, “we’ll have to keep at it as long as
there’s a building boom in New York,” and adds “We try to do all street work
as painlessly for everyone as possible.”
— Gabe Herman
Local News
Read all about it!
thevillager.com
12 December 26, 2019 Schneps Media
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