As temperatures in New York City plunge to record lows, tenants at One Blue Slip have gone days without running water.
Tenants tell Greenpointers that the incident is just the latest in a long history of management company Brookfield Properties failing to provide them with consistent hot water, among a litany of other issues (Brookfield Properties did not return our request for comment).
The plumbing failed around noon on Saturday, February 7, sending tenants scrambling to make dozens of calls to the building’s management, not to mention 311.
“There is no way to flush toilets, which quickly becomes a biohazard. There are no showers. No sinks to wash dishes. No way to clean clothes,” resident Matt Bohan told Greenpointers. “Laundry machines shut off mid-cycle, leaving clothes wet and covered in soap with no way to rinse them. Toilets have begun backing up. Residents are being told to use bathrooms in other buildings.”
According to a February 8 email sent to residents from Brookfield Properties, “[t]he pipe that feeds the gravity tanks on top of the building froze.”
“We have had multiple contractors working around the clock to fix this. They have informed us that at this juncture, due to adverse weather conditions, the water will likely not be back until tomorrow afternoon, best case or early in the week.”
As of February 10, the water has returned, though intermittently.
In Greenpoint, you’d be hard pressed to find tenants singing the praises of Brookfield (scratch that — you’d be hard pressed anywhere, as their DC tenants formed an association to call them out). The management company has become synonymous with the idea of luxury buildings that seem perfect on paper but fall apart on the inside.
One Blue Slip is a part of Brookfield’s Greenpoint Landing development, which also comprises Two Blue Slip, Eagle + West, and The Bellslip (Curbed took a closer look at issues plaguing Eagle + West last year).
One Blue Slip, as do its neighboring counterparts, touts stunning waterfront views, tastefully designed apartments, and amenities such as a screening room, a coworking room, a game room, and a pet spa. It’s the kind of building where a 413-square-foot studio rents for $3,251 a month.
Bohan moved into One Blue Slip with his boyfriend last December, in what appeared to be a dream living situation. That dream quickly curdled into a major nuisance.
“The first red flag came immediately. On move-in day, the lobby was filled with large industrial dryers after a pipe had burst and flooded the space. At the time, we assumed it was a one-off incident and had compassion for the situation,” Bohan tells Greenpointers.
“Over the past two and a half months, we have not had consistent hot water for more than a few days at a time. Hot water would go out, briefly return, then disappear again — over and over. This wasn’t a temporary disruption; it became a pattern.”
They also started to notice brown water occasionally coming out of the taps, to which management tried to reassure them that it was safe, but did not provide clarity on what could have turned the water brown or how long to expect it.
Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, shared that her family has also been experiencing the brown water issue, to the point where she doesn’t feel safe bathing her toddler in it.
“We won the housing lottery for my family, and we thought we were lucky, but it’s been a total nightmare,” she said of living in One Blue Slip.
She and other tenants shared the sense that the building has fallen into disrepair since it first opened in 2018.
“There were always social events…there was a French club. There was a Spanish club. There were activities for the babies. The playroom was always spotless,” she said. “All the amenities were fantastic. Everything was clean, but it’s not like that today. Everything has deteriorated.”
One resident, Zach Eisenstat, concurred that the building didn’t have major issues when he moved in 2021.
“Definitely in the last like 18 months, maybe, we’ve noticed a lot of hot water issues and HVAC issues,” he told Greenpointers.
“Over the summer, the entire building’s AC went out during those hot days. Extreme weather impacted the building a lot because pressure on the systems was unable to keep up,” he continued.
Arthur Kondrashenkov said that while he has not experienced any issues with the hot water prior to this weekend, he frequently experiences water leaks.
“It happens almost every year, but usually it was like a very small water leakage, not too serious, and they’re fixing it every time, extremely fast.”
The ceiling leaked again in December, only this time he calls the experience “a disaster.”
“It was like somebody turned on the faucet, and the water with high pressure fell down from my ceiling to my apartment during the night…And the pressure of water was so big that the huge trash can was filled with water in five minutes.”
He had to move out of his apartment for three weeks while maintenance staff made repairs (issues with management run the gamut, but everyone praised the building’s staff and maintenance workers for their diligence),
Further frustrating tenants is the growing sentiment that Brookfield could have prevented this situation in the first place. At least two tenants told us that, during on-site conversations with plumbers, they learned that the pipe was not properly insulated when it was first installed.
While management has acknowledged these issues through frequent email and text updates, some tenants say the problems are rarely resolved. Blue Slip tenants also expressed frustration at Brookfield management’s lack of transparency, lamenting that it’s difficult to contact them directly.
“When they did respond, it was like stuff that was demonstrably not true or so kind of basic [that it] didn’t help, you know,” said Eisenstat.
The heat and hot water failed completely during the January 25 snowstorm, leaving tenants to suffer in freezing conditions.
So the building was already down on its luck when the water went completely out on February 7.
Brookfield Properties provided tenants with bottled water, though it was a day late and a dollar short (they didn’t provide it until Sunday, and it was not enough to cover everyone’s varied water needs). They also offered to reimburse those who temporarily decamped to a hotel.
The water has returned, but tenants fret that their quality-of-life issues are far from over. According to HPD records, One Blue Slip currently has 24 open violations on the property. 11 of these are violations racked up from February 8 to 10 and are Class C, considered an “immediately hazardous” situation.
Failure to correct that violation can amount to $350 – $1,250 per day and $500 – $1,500 per day for subsequent violations (heat and hot water violations are supposed to be corrected ASAP).
“It’s a tough situation. It’s shitty, and I hope that they’re forced to make this too expensive a problem to ever have happen again,” Eisenstat concluded.