UPPER WEST SIDE, NY – With temperatures dipping into the 40s at night, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents at a number of developments on the Upper West Side suddenly found themselves without heat and hot water on Friday, multiple residents told Patch.
“It’s out more than we would like to admit,” said Suelynette Hernandez, a resident of 589 Amsterdam who was without heat and hot water on Saturday. “I literally just got home from urgent care with my kids because we’re all sick due to the lack of heat and hot water,” she added.
Hernandez said she received no notice that her utilities would be shut off this weekend, but by the time Patch got to her building – and after we’d contacted Con Edison and NYCHA – an announcement had appeared in the lobby.
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“This wasn’t here in the morning, and I would know, because I’m an early riser,” Hernandez said.
Wise Towers
Around the corner at 133 West 90th Street, also known as Wise Towers, Ernesto Carrera said he’d heard from his super – who works for PACT Renaissance Collaborative (PRC), a private management company that oversees management of some NYCHA complexes – that the heat and hot water would be shut off at about the same time as it was being shut off.
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“I got a call from my super, who told me that [Con Edison] was going to shut everything down, but in this development we have a hard time getting heat anyway, so I really didn’t know what was going to happen,” Carrera said.
WSUR Brownstones
Across Columbus Avenue at the WSUR Brownstones, another NYCHA development on West 90th Street, WSUR Brownstones Tenant Association President Cynthia Tibbs told Patch that she only learned of the shutdown after she’d called NYCHA when her apartment got cold.
“Con Ed is supposed to give us 48 hours’ notice,” Tibbs said, “unless it’s an extreme emergency. This time, we got no notice whatsoever, as you can see throughout the buildings.”
In addition to 589 Amsterdam, Wise Towers, and the WSUR Brownstones, Tibbs said she’d spoken with residents of 102 West 91st Street, 74 West 92nd Street, 201 West 93rd Street, and 120 W 94th Street who were also without heat and hot water.
‘Routine Steam Work’
NYCHA confirmed that an outage had affected heat at the Thomas Apartments (102 West 91st Street), the De Hostos Apartments (201 West 93rd Street), and the WSUR Brownstones. Repairs had been completed, according to NYCHA, and heat and hot water were being restored as of
Saturday afternoon.
A spokesperson for Con Edison initially told Patch that the utility had no reports of any outages of any kind at any of the addresses Patch provided, and that it would be sending technicians to developments to check gas and steam.
Later in the day on Saturday, the spokesperson was able to confirm that the outage was due to routine steam work, with service restored as of approximately 3 p.m. on Saturday.
“Ummmm,” Hernandez said, with a skeptical laugh. “I spent my first winter here just freezing, until I learned the trick of buying the window plastic and space heaters. I have to run space heaters all day just to make it somewhat comfortable,” she sighed.
Tibbs expressed frustration over what she characterized as a breakdown in communication.
“We need better communication all around, between Con Edison, NYCHA, and the tenants, who did not deserve to freeze all night due to lack of communication. This time it was Con Ed’s fault,” Tibbs said.
“Not everyone can afford to buy a heater. Not everybody has the luxury of living in a private building or a condominium where this would never happen. Nobody cares about the people who have been in the community the longest, due to the misconception that they’re of low-income. Their lives don’t matter.”
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Hot water had returned to Tibbs’ apartment by sunset on Saturday.
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