As workers hauled off the remains of a dismantled sidewalk shed in the West Village on Monday afternoon, a gaggle of stunned pedestrians stood watch, their necks craned skyward as if witnessing a miracle.
“I’m about to fall over,” said local resident Alex Schuchard to a neighbor, who stood silently shaking his head. “It’s been here half my life.”
For the better part of 22 years, scaffolding had entombed the sidewalk in front of and around 26 Ninth Street, forming a dirty tunnel of darkness on an otherwise pristine block.
Originally erected to protect passersby from falling debris, it’s believed to be the second-oldest sidewalk scaffold in the five boroughs: it went up in 1999, briefly came down in the mid-2000s, and hasn’t moved since 2012.
Early on in the pandemic, local residents organized to finally have it removed, forming a neighborhood group that leafed the block with a simple demand: “Take It Down, George!” (a reference to George Adams, the building’s owner, who did not respond to a request for comment). But even as violations piled up, the structure remained in place.
Then, on Monday – after a lengthy process of repairs and inspections to the damaged facade – the Department of Buildings deemed the building safe. Contractors arrived to cart off the timeworn scaffolding, its steel beams and wooden boards discarded on the sidewalk like the picked bones of a carcass. A woman entering the building for therapy initially wondered if she’d arrived at the wrong address.
Brittney Weber, a longtime pet sitter in the neighborhood, stood nearby with her seven dogs, marveling at the scaffolding's absence. “I never remember a time when it wasn’t here,” she said. “I genuinely feel a lot better.”
The structure was one of at least 21 sidewalk sheds that have stood for at least a decade, according to data provided by the Department of Buildings (there are likely others not permitted by the city). These are the outliers, the agency said. The average age of the nearly 10,000 sheds spread across the city – enough to reach Canada – is a little over seven months.
But the fact that some sheds go up and do not come down for years on end is a reflection of the city’s oversight failure, according to Nina Kaufelt, the co-founder of Take it Down, George! And while it shouldn’t fall on neighborhood activists to fight absentee landlords, the shed’s end was cause for celebration, she said.
West Village resident Nina Kaufelt, the co-founder of Take it Down, George! is pictured on the sidewalk.
“It feels like a great amount of clutter has been cleared: The wind, the sun, and not to be too woo-woo, but the energy is all flowing down the block,” she said. “Sometimes even in Gotham, the little guys win.”
The city’s current shed rules date back to 1979, when a piece of masonry fell off a Columbia University building and crushed a student. Since then, Local Law 11 has required the inspection of larger building facades every five years; those that fail must put up a sidewalk shed until the repairs are complete.
But building owners have often found it cheaper to renew the shed permits than complete the required work. In recent years, the city has announced initiatives to crack down on negligent shed stewards: increasing penalties for uncompleted work, while bringing nuisance abatement cases against the worst offenders.
Those efforts don’t necessarily mean quick fixes. Despite a lawsuit by the city, New York’s oldest sidewalk shed – in the Sugar Hill neighborhood of Manhattan – is still standing.
The most recent inspection report discovered a series of unsafe conditions, including loose bricks and cracked terra cotta stones. Later this week, the shed will celebrate 6,000 consecutive days of existence.
But for those Sugar Hill residents inclined to give up hope, the jubilation on Ninth Street on Monday might offer a small note of optimism.
Standing in her doorway, Rosa Burns, who has been a property manager at the building adjacent to 26 Ninth Street for the last decade, said she had come to see the neighboring scaffolding as a permanent feature of her life. When the crew arrived on Monday to take it down, she refused to let herself believe it was happening.
“I couldn’t believe it, I went there and asked: ‘Are you taking it off? Oh my God,’” Burns said, grinning. “I don’t know what to say. I’m just happy.”
