Posted on 03/29/2015 7:09:19 AM PDT by grundle
NEW YORK (AP) — More than seven months before an explosion and fire leveled three apartment buildings in Manhattan's East Village, utility workers discovered that the gas line to a restaurant in one of them had been illegally tapped, creating a hazardous situation, according to the company.
On Aug. 6, a meter reader at the restaurant detected the smell of gas and reported it, said Consolidated Edison spokesman Allan Drury. A gas crew dispatched to the site found multiple leaks in a gas line that had been tapped, Drury said, adding that the restaurant was the only customer in the building authorized to receive gas.
The discovery led Con Edison to shut down gas service to the building for about 10 days while the building owner made repairs. Gas service was restored after the utility deemed it safe, Drury said.
City officials suspect that leaking natural gas was the source of Thursday's explosion and fire, which sparked a raging blaze that took hundreds of firefighters to quell. De Blasio visited a firehouse Saturday to thank some of them.
Meanwhile, emergency workers painstakingly looked for signs of two missing people, scooping through piles of loose brick, wood and debris with their hands and using dogs to search the rubble. Authorities acknowledged the chances of finding either person alive were slim.
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“You seem unfamiliar with “RENT CONTROL”
in the neighborhood.”
Rent Control essentailly no longer exists in NYC. I am no longer versed in the details, but rent control was superseded by rent subidized in 1971. There are very few buildings that still fall under “rent control” As the person you were responding to is correct. This neighborhood is the $3,000 per unit neighborhood.
Once someone moves out of a RC building the status becomes rent subsidized. And that can be removed with renovation as I recall.
From the little online research I did the building was vacant and undergoing extensive renovation.
Rent Controlled apartments still DO EXIST in NYC.
Original RC tenants have figured out how to scam the system and now their grandchildren live in those apartments.
As to your statement of $3000 units, there would be two or three of those in a brownstone building, if the landlord is lucky. Those apartments carry the weight of paying the heating fuel and water bills for the $200 RC apartments.
BTW, in order to receive a high rent, it takes years and major renovations (+/- $40.000) to an apartment before the Dept of Housing would allow a landlord to charge $3000 & up for an apartment. Decontrolling an apartment is not cheap nor easy. Ever deal with bureaucrazy?
If someone illegally tapped into the gas line, then why didn’t ConEd turn off the gas when they did the inspection that day?
When someone reports a gas leak, ConEd shuts off the gas to the entire building till the repairs are done.
According to the reports, the landlord was in the process of improving the gas line. The ConEd inspector failed to do a correct inspection if there was an illegal tapping. He should be investigated. Sometimes inspectors touch stuff they shouldn’t and cause more problems.
BTW, inspectors are not always very bright people.
As to the plumber, didn’t he smell the gas or know about opening a door while there’s a gas leak? This puzzles me.
Before i posted, I reviewed the RC wiki page..While I was attending NYU in the late 60s,
I had a RC apartment on 10th St
between 1st & 2nd Ave
Stop being a jerk.
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