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'You can't even look out the window': Asbestos dust coats Brooklyn NYCHA building walls
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Oct 29, 2026 at 4:11 p.m. ET
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Catalina Gonella / Gothamist
By
Catalina Gonella
Published Oct 29, 2026 at 4:11 p.m. ET
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Some residents of Brooklyn's Marcy Houses are balancing their personal health against the difficulties of relocating after a steam leak deposited asbestos-laden residue on the exterior walls of two adjoining buildings there, and covered many of their windows with the white dust.
Workers from the New York City Housing Authority and the city Department of Environmental Protection were at 502 and 504 Marcy Ave. — two of the 27 buildings in the sprawling Bedford-Stuyvesant complex — responding to the incident on Thursday. NYCHA officials said the steam came from an exhaust vent for an underground line that connects with mobile boilers. Part of the apparatus sticks up from the ground and is surrounded by a wooden safety barrier, which residents have been concerned about for some time.
Some told Gothamist they had seen the steam billowing up for weeks or longer, and that it had been leaving a white powder on their windows.
“The steam kept coming up, real white steam. It would cover the windows. We can't look out our kitchen window or the room window facing that way,” said Digna Torres, 75, whose apartment was along the affected exterior wall. “And all of a sudden, the windows got white. I mean white white. You can't even look out the window.”
NYCHA officials said in a statement the residue tested positive for asbestos, and that residents of 23 affected apartments — those along the exterior walls of the buildings — had been offered temporary relocations. Four have relocated, officials said.
NYCHA officials say the white dust lining residents' windows comes from steam that billowed up through exhaust vent for a mobile boiler line.
Catalina Gonella / Gothamist
Torres said she’s been stressed since getting the notice on Wednesday, but decided against leaving her apartment because she didn’t want to transport her three parakeets. On Thursday morning, she said she was waiting for workers to clean her windows.
“I'm worried,” she said. “My sons are like, ‘Mom, that's asbestos. That's no good. You could get cancer.’ And I said, "Oh, my God." Yeah, it’s bad. … Right now I just wanna know when they're coming so I could do what I have to do.”
Councilmember Chi Ossé said earlier this week that nine buildings were without heat due to the same issue. By Wednesday, NYCHA confirmed it had restored heat to 234 apartments across four of the buildings, and was working to install mobile boilers for the remaining five buildings.
Estalin De Leon, 45, also lives in the buildings but in an apartment facing the opposite direction, so her apartment is not one of those considered directly affected. She said the notices regarding the asbestos still left her nervous about the building’s safety.
“Of course — I was really scared,” she said in Spanish. “I sent my daughter to stay with my sister, and I stayed behind in case they needed to come and check the apartment, but they didn’t end up checking my apartment.”
During an appearance on the WNYC show “Who’s Running This Place” on Thursday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he didn’t have updates on the situation, but said serving NYCHA residents' needs is a top priority for his administration.
“ We are looking to address not only this specific issue in ensuring that we're taking care of the health and safety of those NYCHA residents, but also delivering more in investment and attention to NYCHA than we've seen in recent decades because these are working-class New Yorkers who are being pushed out of New York through a lack of habitable conditions," he said.
Tagged
brooklyn
housing
Catalina Gonella
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