Steamed on Avenue A and East 10th Street

Per EVG reader Chris this evening on Avenue A and East 10th Street...

Sounds like a jet engine up close — hear it really loud inside halfway down Ave A. Con Ed's got a truck there. Just seems like a lot of steam.

Fall Friday flashback: Yesterday's First Avenue manhole explosion, the movie

On Fridays this fall, and probably winter and spring and... we'll post one of the 12,000-plus EVG, uh, posts from yesteryear... like this one from Oct. 27, 2010 ...

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Many thanks to EV Grieve reader Jason B. for this video...

A few highlights:

• The onlooker in the beginning eating a banana
• The firefighter dragging the Voice box out of harm's way (32-second mark)
• The young man crossing the street right in front of the smoking manhole and getting yelled at (46-second mark)

Previously on EV Grieve:
[Updated]: Explosion, fire on First Avenue and Ninth Street

From ConEd to shining ConEd

Sunset on East 14th Street this evening ... via EVG reader Emily...

How much of a rent discount for not having gas for cooking?

A resident is looking for a little advice about the current situation in his or her East Seventh Street apartment building. (It's a different building than the one we wrote about here in March 2011.)

Some background.

On April 12, workers shut off the gas because tenants had been smelling a gassy odor in the building. The residents didn't have hot water or gas for cooking for nine days. The hot water returned on April 20 — but there still wasn't any gas for cooking.

According to the resident, the building's landlord, Koppelman Management, was difficult, if not impossible, to reach. When someone did get in touch with a building rep, they apparently blamed the matter on ConEd. On May 7, full gas service was restored to all but five of the apartments. To date, gas for cooking is still not available in the five apartments.

Tenants have called 311, though the resident described the exchanges as "ineffective." Meanwhile, the resident says management offered a 15-percent discount on the May rent for the gas outage from April 12-May 7. But the resident, who's in one of the five units still without gas for cooking, thinks that's a low-ball figure, considering people have spent more than 15 percent of the rent on food in the past five weeks.

So far, the resident hasn't paid the May rent, and won't until the issue is resolved.

"The entire building is pissed off but everyone is at a loss for rules/laws, etc. This building has never properly been taken care of and ... this has been a constant problem. [Residents have] had rent strikes in the past just to get regular maintenance done."

Any constructive input? Do you calculate what you think you spent on food and subtract that from the rent? Other options?

[Updated] Meanwhile, on First Avenue...

Near Sixth Street. Via EV Grieve reader Duke... who notes, at 9 p.m., "situation normal." ConEd is on the scene.

And now with sound...

About the Boiler Dilemma

From the EV Grieve inbox...

Beware — The push is on right now to get all buildings in NYC to convert their boilers to Natural Gas.

Don't let this happen to your building! As we all know, East Village buildings are increasingly populated with at least a few, and usually with a majority of young business-oriented tenants with a strong sense of entitlement who care little about the future of the neighborhood. When decisions are made about the maintenance and preservation of their buildings, the only criteria they consider is immediate cost, convenience and mainly the future sale price of their domiciles.

ConEd is giving New Yorkers the option to switch to #2 heating oil boilers — OR offering substantial discounts for conversion to gas burning boilers. Both options continue our dependance on the use of fossil fuels. There ARE alternatives, but ConEd and Bloomberg are both pushing natural gas. ConEd is the sole supplier as well as deliverer of gas — unlike the current heating oil or alternatives, so the switch to gas will add billions to ConEd and Oil and Gas Corporations' already outrageous profits.

The City’s new heating oil rules require buildings to stop using heavy oils by 2030, (and if your boiler uses #4 or #6 oil, you mush switch soon). Building owners are tempted to convert to gas, due to its current low price. But what is the true cost of “cheap” gas, when fracking could ruin our air and water, and bring radon-laden shale gas to our stoves? Are conservation, solar thermal and biodiesel realistic alternatives?

More info here.

Avenue C sinkhole update

Here at 13th Street yesterday afternoon... not so sinky looking any longer... ConEd has been working on it the last few days...

Photo by Bobby Williams.

ConEd fixing Avenue C sinkhole

Dave on 7th passes along these photos showing ConEd workers repairing/filling in/whatever the sinkhole that has been growing on Avenue C at 13th Street...

ConEd back in transformer action on Avenue A today

They ConEddies are back in action today on Avenue A. Yesterday, workers gingerly removed a (100 ton?) transformer from the substation on Avenue A between Sixth Street and Fifth Street ... today, the workers will be putting the new transformer(s) in place.

And all together now...

Something evil's watching over you
Comin' from the sky above
there's nothing you can do

Prepare to strike
There'll be no place to run
When your caught within the grip
Of the evil Megatron

Transformers
More than meets the eye
Transformers
Robots in Disguise

Today in photos of ConEd putting in a new transformer on Avenue A

If you walked along Avenue A today, then you likely noticed the cranes, flatbeds, ConEd workers, etc., hanging around... the crew was on the scene to put in a new transformer in the ConEd substation between Fifth Street and Sixth Street... today, ConEd removed the old transformer; tomorrow, they'll put in the new replacement (which will actually be four smaller transformers, according to one of the 300 workers on the scene...) Photos here by Bobby Williams...

Transformers in the night...

Invasion of the Transformer People!

This is the old transformer (100 tons!) that ConEd removed this afternoon from its substation on Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street... it was quite the Social Event...

Previously.

Transformers: Dark of the Avenue A

ConEd is futzing around with their substation on Avenue A between Fifth Street and Sixth Street...And we can never resist a photo of a ConEd flatbed with two large transformers... which Bobby Williams is well aware!

[Updated] Breaking: Explosion reported at the ConEd substation on East 14th Street

Around 7:45 tonight, residents near the ConEd substation on East 14th Street and Avenue C reported hearing an explosion. However, many people thought it was thunder... until the FDNY responded... Breaking

According to EV Griever reader Robert Galinsky: "Big explosion, giant black plume of smoke, no flames." A witness at the scene said that it was a gas leak.

More emergency crews are responding to the scene...

In any event, 14th Street at Avenue C is cordoned off... the M9 and 14D buses were being rerouted... Avenue C is blocked off at 12th Street.

Updated:

Just after 9, @aimeeweiss noted that most of the emergency crews packed up and left the scene...

How to get a new tree for your block

For months last year, ConEd worked on 11th Street just east of First Avenue ... In late June, ConEd finished up the job... leaving behind a dead tree where the steampipe was working...



Meanwhile, someone removed the dead tree.



Seems reasonable that residents along here might ask about a tree replacement. Here's the response a resident received from Councilmember Rosie Mendez's office about such a request:

Con Edison has informed us that they do not replace trees. All curb line trees belong to the City of New York. Only the City can put in a claim for their property. If you plant a tree on City property (Curb), after one year it becomes the property of the City of New York. According to the City Parks Department, trees should be planted 20 feet from steam mains. The tree that was killed did not meet this stipulation since it was closer than 20 feet from the steam main.

[Y]ou or the block association can request a tree from the City free of charge. You can go to [this website].

However, the city and the Parks Department will probably suggest that you plant it somewhere else to meet the 20 feet requirement.

Got all that?

Breaking: 11th Street shut down; some sort of 'nasty-smelling smoke'

Thanks to EV Grieve reader Patrick for the photo and info:

"They've shut down 11th btw 1st and 2nd aves. Some sort of nasty-smelling smoke coming from a grate/manhole. They've got con-ed emergency crews on the block."

Goodbye to the coldest day of the year (so far!)

Photo of the ConEd plant off 14th Street taken this morning by EV Grieve contributor Shawn Chittle.

The Lo-Down has a great midday shot of the ConEd stacks here.

The cloud factory

14th Street and Avenue A.

The problems with manholes this time of year

They explode.

From the Times today: There have been at least 19 manhole fires or explosions since New Year's Day in New York City. Per the article:

All these incidents — only one of which involved an injury, minor — are part of an annual cycle as predictable as crocuses in March and mosquitoes in June: the surge in manhole fires as salty slush seeps down into the city’s maze of subterranean utility closets.

How to explain the manhole explosions then in other times of the year...? Such as in September ... or October...

In Memoriam: Roger M. Lane

Yesterday marked the seventh anniversary of Jodie Lane's death... She was a 30-year-old doctoral candidate at the Teacher’s College at Columbia University. During the late afternoon of Jan. 16, 2004, Lane, who lived on East 12th Street with her boyfriend, was walking her dogs. She was electrocuted on a snow-covered Con Edison junction box on the southwest corner of 11th Street at First Avenue.

The street was named in her honor in the spring of 2005.

I'm bringing all this up because I just heard that her father, Roger M. Lane, passed away in Texas on Dec. 31. He was 63. Many people were moved by his crusade for justice in his daughter's death. In November 2004, ConEd agreed to pay Lane's family more than $6.2 million and to set up a $1 million scholarship fund in her name at Columbia.

Wrote Gothamist at the time: "We're also very impressed with the efforts of the Lane family, especially Roger Lane, Jodie's father, to push Con Ed to improve its procedures, and we thank the family for caring enough to make sure other New Yorkers are safe."

Gunnar Hellekson, who spearheaded the reform of safety regulations for New York State’s electrical utilities following Lane's death, remembered Roger Lane in a recent post at OnePeople.

"As part of his settlement with ConEd, he’d negotiated access to ConEdison’s safety data, and he spent much of his time in retirement pouring over it. He was using that methodical, exacting, analytical mind to find trends, holes, and anomalies. He wanted to hold ConEd to account, even years after his daughter’s death. He didn’t want another father to suffer the way he did."

I remember the night of Jan. 16, 2004, fairly clearly. It was a Friday, and I was out at Sophie's. This was the story that everyone seemed to be talking about. Did you hear about the woman who was electrocuted walking her dogs? It was such a harmless, everyday activity that you might not think twice about. The tragedy was a reminder of how much life hangs in balance on a daily basis.

Hellekson ended his post this way:

"Jodie Lane’s death brought a great deal of attention to the safety of New York’s electrical system. Until her death, a horse being electrocuted or a woman being burned alive were treated as freak accidents, an unusual but expected risk of living in New York City. After a year of hearings and public attention, it is now understood in both city government and in Albany that these are not acceptable risks, and that something can be done about them. That is Jodie Lane’s legacy. That legacy was secured in 2005, when East 11th Street was named 'Jodie Lane Place.'"

Read more about the Jodie S. Lane Public Safety Foundation here.

Love the ConEd Building? Then have we got a home for you!

Just look at the view from this private roof deck on Fourth Avenue...



This two-bedroom home, located in the Petersfield, is going for $1.95 million, per the listing. Just think of all the money you'll save on watches!