Scaffolding Plagues Harlem Corner For Nearly 2 Decades Years: Report

HARLEM, NY — Even in the thick of summer one Harlem street corner remains stuck in the dark.

West 115th Street and Lenox Avenue has been blocked out from the sun for the better part of two decades by scaffolding, first installed in the early 2000s after pieces of a building's facade fell to the ground, 73-year-old business owner Joyce Nicholas told the New York Times report.

Nicholas, who owns beauty salon "Billy Jean's Hair Braiding Salon," told the Times that she has to stand on the street corner to help customers find her business.

“Everybody complains,” Nicholas told the Times. “It’s been up too long.”

But the city has few options to liberate the street corner from the hulking scaffolding. As long as the building facade remains a danger to pedestrians the scaffolding must stay up, a Department of Buildings staffer told the Times.

"The building owner needs to meet their legal responsibility to keep the building safe,” he added. “Until that happens, the sidewalk shed has to stay up to protect the public,” DOB spokesman Joseph Soldevere told the Times.

The building in question is 100 Lenox Avenue, currently owned by the Lenox and Pennamon Housing Development Fund Corporation according to city real estate records. The Lenox and Pennamon Housing Development Fund Corporation is a subsidiary of the West Harlem Community Organization, the Times reported. Another subsidiary of the organization, Lenox Avenue Housing Associates, acquired the building from the city in 1990.

Read the full New York Times story here.

Photo by Google Maps street view