HELLS KITCHEN — Five blighted buildings that neighbors complain have been an eyesore and a magnet for vagrants for decades will finally be torn down, the Department of Buildings confirmed Tuesday.
The question is when.
The buildings at 485, 487, 489, 491 and 497 Ninth Ave. were ordered for "emergency demolition" on Aug. 8, Department of Buildings spokesman Alexander Schnell said. The order came after the fire department and and the DOB did an emergency inspection of the site requested by the community board.
But there is no time table for when the tear-down will actually happen, Schnell said.
The five buildings along the western flank of Ninth Avenue between 37th and 38th Streets, have been boarded up since the nineties and have sunk further into disrepair with each passing year, according to community members.
Some windows on the four story buildings are broken out, others boarded up. The entire back facades of two of the five buildings are broken out, covered only by tarps. When a sidewalk shed went up in front in 2013, the covered area became a haven for homeless people seeking shelter that have taken to drinking, peeing and masturbating in front of the building, residents said.
An “emergency demolition” order is considered less severe than an “immediate emergency demolition” so there is no concrete timeline for when the buildings will come down, DOB spokesman Schell said. The Department of Buildings is currently in talks with the landlord David Israeli and is waiting for him to submit permits for demolition, Schell said.
If Israeli stops cooperating and doesn’t submit paperwork the city will take over the demolition, though Israeli has been cooperative so far, Schnell said.
In a brief phone conversation, Israeli said that legal issues had prevented him from doing anything to the buildings for nearly twenty years, though he would not immediately describe those legal troubles.
He said that earlier this year he wanted to renovate four of the buildings and turn them into one building when the back side of the building fell off.
“It just makes it impossible to renovate the buildings,” Israeli said. “We have no choice other than demolishing.”
Israeli said he was waiting for permits from Department of Buildings, but DOB said they had not received his application yet.
The five buildings slated for demolition sandwich two still-inhabited apartment buildings, owned by the same landlord, according to housing advocates.
493 and 495, which house about 30 tenants and an Indian Restaurant, a Nepalese craft store and a barber shop on the ground floor, were gut-renovated in the early 2000’s after lengthy court battles, according to the community board and Israeli.
Nine remaining tenants from the crumbling buildings on either side, took up residence there, after the renovation, according to the community board.
But the abandoned tenements on either side of the renovated buildings have long been an eyesore and source of frustration for business owners and residents near the blighted block.
“It’s scary,” said Biswa Thapa, 41, who owns the shop adjacent to the string of abandoned buildings “People [don’t] want to walk around here.”
Thapa said the buildings have been a drain on business for the twelve years that he’s run his Nepalese crafts and accessories store.
“It’s unsafe,” a nearby business owner who declined to give his name said.
