Some violations have fallen through the cracks at 625 W.133rd St.
The building houses three schools and is now home to widespread cracks in the walls, ceilings, and floors.
The three-story school building, which includes Roberto Clemente Middle School, KIPP Infinity Charter School, and KIPP NYC College Prep High School, was cited in a report released by Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer’s office last Thursday that strongly criticized the city’s Department of Buildings.
According to the report, the department is doing little to address hundreds of thousands of open violations, especially in the city’s public schools. The 133rd Street facilities had the most violations of the schools surveyed.
On Tuesday, Stevo Pepdjonovic, custodian engineer for the building, gave Spectator a tour of the facilities, and first pointed out a crack next to one classroom that ran from the floor to the ceiling. Down another hallway, cracks lined the floor. On parts of the third floor, the walls were slightly separated from the ceiling.
“It’s not a hazard, but it is a DOB violation,” he said.
According to the DOB website, the school building currently has 22 active violations, six classified as hazardous. The hazardous label means that the DOB considers a violation to be a “threat that severely affects life, health, safety, property, public interest, or persons so as to warrant immediate corrective action.”
Of those six hazardous violations that are still open today, three were submitted in 2006, another three in 2007.
The report criticized the DOB for neglecting so many violations, but DOB spokesperson Tony Sclafani said, “This city report contains several inaccuracies and fails to address the responsibility of a property owner for maintaining their building in a safe manner.” Sclafani said the DOB is responsible for regular inspections and reports, but not for the actual property renovation. “Despite what the report says, the Department of Buildings performs audits of certificates of corrections, re-inspects hazardous violations, and has worked with other city agencies to reduce the number of violations at city-owned buildings,” he said.
He also emphasized that “open” is not the same as unresolved. If a certificate of correction was never submitted or a fine was not paid, a violation remains open.
According to Pepdjonovic, the cracks are the result of a number of construction factors. “The building was built in 1975, at the same time as the apartment building right here, and it’s downhill. Over time the school has settled, leaving visible cracks. When they built the bus depot across the street, I guess they used a lot of dynamite as well,” he said.
Students heading to class on Tuesday walked past hallway cracks without giving them a second glance.
But some said the cracks were obvious. Referring to the building—which was cited in the report as having “lateral movement” due to cracking—seventh-grader Stephanie Davis said, “It’s not moving around, but I’ve seen cracks in the walls and ceilings.”
School officials consider the hazardous label a matter of official language, and are confident that the issues will be addressed soon.
“Do you see something ready to collapse? As an engineer, if I see something that would be hazardous, I wouldn’t let people in,” Pepdjonovic said. He emphasized that student safety was his first priority, and that the cracks were not dangerous.
Rosalie Jean, principal of Roberto Clemente, also said that there was no danger. “I don’t know of any citation that’s put anyone in harm’s way.”
The Department of Education has been proactively addressing the problems of the aging building, Pepdjonovic said. The schools recently received new fire alarms, surveillance cameras, windows, and paint, and had also had work done on the building’s brick facade, he said.
The building, 625 W.133rd St., is attached to the large residential tower of 3333 Broadway, managed by Urban American Management Corporation and DOE spokespeople said that many of the citations involve the building as a whole.
“The building at 133rd Street houses more than the school. It is a multi-use building that includes housing, parking and has playgrounds,” city Department of Education spokesperson Marge Feinberg said in an e-mail. “We have completed 15 projects since 1991 in the school to dismiss violations, such as masonry leaks and to provide program upgrades,” she said.
It is still unclear if 3333 or the DOE is addressing a water leak in the school’s gym that has stained a portion of the gym wall and ruined part of the floor.
Joe DePlasco, spokesperson for Urban American, said that 3333 was not the problem.
“It is my understanding that leakage was due to a bulkhead that is owned and operated by the School Construction Authority that sits on a deck above the gym,” he said in e-mail.
For some parents, the violations are not a concern.
Mario Bland, parent of a KIPP Infinity fifth grader, said, “I haven’t seen nothing. They had scaffolding out here a couple of weeks ago, so everything seems normal, being taken care of.”
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