Twenty-One Manhattan Buildings, One Hearing Date, All Ruled 'In Violation'

Twenty-one Manhattan properties go in front of an OATH/ECB judge on September 24, and per DOB records filed with the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, all of them already know how it ends: every case in this batch is marked "HEARING COMPLETED" with a result of "IN VIOLATION."

The single biggest thread is elevators. Seven of the twenty-one tickets cite Section 28-304, failure to maintain an elevator or conveying system — the kind of violation that piles up when a machine room tag lapses or an inspection gets skipped. At 229 West 26th Street, respondent 229 Realty Associates was cited for an inoperative outside communication line, an expired fire extinguisher tag, an expired machine brake tag, and an expired CAT1 inspection tag, all at $625. At 44 West 63rd Street, Philip A. Scotti Jr. was hit with the same $625 charge for a missing hoist machine brake tag, an expired CAT5 tag, and a missing CAT1 tag. Two more expired-tag elevator tickets — 5 West 86th Street and 106 West 96th Street's Brusco Equities LLC, the latter also flagged for an expired GC permit sign-off under Section 28-116 — round out the paperwork-lapse cluster. Two elevator tickets go further than paperwork: at 1781 Riverside Drive, 1781 Riverside LLC was cited for missing hoistway door sight guards and unsecured hoistway doors; at 441 East 116th Street, Lott Legacy Apartments Housing was cited for oil in the elevator pit and a hydraulic cylinder leak causing a "noticeable bounce." Both carry the standard $625 elevator penalty.

Facade and structural maintenance is the second cluster. Per DOB records, RXR SL Owner LLC was cited $2,500 at 601 West 26th Street for a missing coping stone and cracked parapet mortar on a fifth-floor setback. Targam DE LLC was cited $2,500 at 740 West End Avenue for missing brick and cracked terracotta between the eighth and ninth floors. A third $1,250 ticket at 33 West 16th Street, filed against 33 West 16 Realty LLC, describes a ceiling collapse in Apartment 10 — plaster and sheetrock pulled loose from furring strips nailed to the joists — logged as a failure-to-maintain violation rather than a life-safety emergency filing.

Two Midtown East tickets at 220 East 42nd Street — one against Steve S. Marku, one against Colgate Restoration Corp, both $1,250 — describe active facade and scaffold work: a suspended scaffold outrigger system installed with mismatched components and missing tiebacks, and sidewalk-shed protection that was required by the approved construction documents but not installed. Both are logged as work not conforming to approved plans.

The remaining tickets are the usual mix: a sidewalk in disrepair along Lexington Avenue at 124 East 88th Street ($1,250, Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran), an ADA handrail wrapped in decorative wire at 13 East 3rd Street ($1,250, Cooper Square Mutual Housing), open energized electrical equipment in a basement at 515 West 48th Street ($500, Migdal12 Management), a combustible wooden structure built against a property line at 531 West 48th Street ($1,250), housekeeping debris creating fire and rodent hazards at 40 Wooster Street ($1,250, JS Realty Development), an expired sidewalk-shed electrical permit at 700 Fort Washington Avenue ($1,250, Empire Management Kedron Associates), and a work-without-permit ticket for electrical outlets and a washer-dryer hookup at 101 Woodruff Avenue in Brooklyn ($1,250, Woodruff 101 LLC) — the one ticket in this batch outside Manhattan.

Total assessed across the twenty-one tickets: just over $22,000. Every case shows a compliance status of "All Terms Met" and a zero balance due, meaning respondents have already settled or are current on payment plans going into Tuesday's hearing calendar.

None of this is new construction failing — it's maintenance debt on existing buildings, and it's exactly the kind of record a facade-inspection contractor, an elevator maintenance company, or a managing agent doing due diligence on a building should be pulling before bidding a job there. A string of expired tags or an unresolved facade violation at an address is a preview of the scope a new contract will actually need to cover.