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Leak sends water gushing into lobby of Bronx building that partially collapsed last year
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Mar 24, 2024
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David Brand / Gothamist
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Mar 24, 2024
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Saturday’s rainstorm sent water streaming through the lobby ceiling of a Bronx building that partially collapsed three months ago, according to video footage shared by attorneys representing its tenants.
The video shows buckets of water leaking throughout the entire lobby of 1915 Billingsley Terrace in Morris Heights. An entire corner of the seven-story building came crumbling down in December, temporarily displacing tenants in 21 of the 46 apartments inside.
The leak inside the building renewed concerns about its stability, said Zoe Kheyman, an attorney with Legal Aid, which is representing Billingsley Terrace tenants in a lawsuit against their landlord.
“The way I would frame this is just another condition that has been caused by long-term neglect and the failure to really invest and fix the conditions as they arise,” said Zoe Kheyman, an attorney at Legal Aid. “We see these types of leaks in neglected buildings when the landlord doesn’t do a good job of really addressing the core or the actual root of the problem …This doesn’t just happen overnight.”
Department of Buildings spokesperson Andrew Rudansky said inspectors visited the building Saturday after receiving reports of the water leaks. While they found water leaking from the ceiling of the lobby, a spokesperson said they did not find any water pooling on the roof. The department issued a violation to the landlord for failure to maintain the building.
The Legal Aid lawsuit, which was filed in February, demands the landlord immediately repair 144 housing violations in the building — and claims more than half of them “are classified as hazardous.”
The tenants also accuse the landlords of failing to provide security for the building after tenants were required to vacate. Looters got access to the apartments, Legal Aid attorneys said, and stole several of the tenants' personal belongings.
An attorney representing the landlords did not immediately respond for comment.
Saturday’s storm brought 3.66 inches of rain to Central Park, marking one of the wettest days ever recorded in New York City during the month of March, according to the National Weather Service.
David Brand and Bahar Ostadan contributed reporting.
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housing
bronx
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Ramsey Khalifeh
Ramsey Khalifeh is a transportation reporter on the NYC Accountability desk covering the largest transit system in the country. He was previously a general assignment reporter at Gothamist and worked on the Boston Globe's metro and copy desk. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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