Meet your new neighbor! What an East Village townhouse builder wants removed

An EV Grieve reader passed along this gem of a discussion from StreetEasy...

Hello, I'm hoping that someone here knows about street renovation work. Specifically, how does one go about getting a large smooth stone removed from in front of a building? I'm referring to the type of tan stone, possibly granite, that you see in front of older buildings. They are potentially very dangerous, especially when wet or icy. The reason I ask is that we're considering building a townhouse in an historic neighborhood like the East Village and one of the properties has this type of slippery stone in front of it on the sidewalk. From what I understand, property owners can be held liable if a resident or passerby slips and falls. We hope to add a few extra storeys to the top of our home as rental apartments and don't want our residents nor our children getting hurt. Is there a city agency that deals with this sort of thing or can we have a contractors dig up the sidewalk? We have yet to decide on the exact lot, but have looked at different locations and if this is a complicated process it would add to our costs which could already be high if they include removing an old automotive shop or entrenched rental occupants. Also, how does one deal with patches of old cobblestones? There is potentially the same problem with them on the street and I've heard of instances of them being removed by the city for the safety of residents.

Given the date, we'd almost say this was a hoax....except that she posted this two weeks ago....