A 21-story, government-owned office building at 2 Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan has 449 violations on record, including 65 that remain open, raising questions about whether City Hall is holding its own properties to the same standard it demands of private landlords. The building, constructed in 1925, sits just blocks from City Hall and is part of a cluster of city-owned properties whose sidewalk sheds have become a flashpoint in New York's push to clear scaffolding from its streets.
Public records reviewed by RegWatch list 2 Lafayette Street as government-owned, and among its violations is one alleging a failure to maintain the exterior facade, with inspectors noting an observed vertical crack at the bulkhead. Another violation on file describes sharp edges, uncapped bolts, missing protective netting, and the absence of warning signs or reflective markers. The property also carries 36 docketed judgments with the city's Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, totaling $3,350 in open balances, according to the same records.
The New York Post reports that New York City is a conspicuous violator of its own campaign to remove hundreds of miles of sidewalk sheds, a push City Hall has branded Get Sheds Down. Per the Post's reporting, city-owned buildings carry sidewalk sheds along Duane, Chambers, Reade and Elk streets near the Municipal Building, and the shed at 2 Lafayette Street has covered all four sides of the building since 2014, shadowing the entrances of a nearby subway station and the neighboring 52 Duane Street.
A Tunnel of Neglect Near City Hall
The Post's reporting describes the shed's tunnel-like enclosure as a magnet for people defecating and for drug dealers, with a section overhanging the entrance to 52 Duane Street, a 125,000-square-foot, family-owned office building that has appeared in scenes from Law & Order and Blue Bloods dozens of times, according to the outlet. In the latest Department of Buildings files cited by the Post, 2 Lafayette Street carries four shed violations and six for its unsafe facade, along with $194,000 in unpaid fines. The Post also reports that Department of Buildings inspectors have posted violations that were later removed and replaced by new ones in filings dating back twelve years.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani launched a Jobs NYC center inside 2 Lafayette Street this month, even as the Post's reporting characterizes his administration as showing little urgency in repairing the dangerous violations tied to the building's facade and shed. The Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which manages the property, told the Post the sheds have remained up because of the facade's condition, while the Department of Design and Construction, which is managing a facade restoration project on DCAS's behalf, said it expects to conclude the design phase soon and begin repair work. Separately, records reviewed by RegWatch show a permit was filed for the address on October 22, 2026, with an estimated cost of $22,000.
Neighbors Say the City Ignored Their Calls
Michael Salzhauer, a member of the family that has owned 52 Duane Street since the 1970s, and the family's attorney, Blair Axel, have pressed the city for action, according to the Post. Axel told the outlet that a private owner responsible for a comparable long-term public safety threat might face severe civil penalties or criminal prosecution. The owners received a call from the city last week after months of seeking the Buildings Department's attention, and the city has said it wants to start planning facade repairs at 52 Duane Street — though Axel told the Post he doubts work will start soon. City Councilmember Christopher Marte's office has been attentive to the situation, per the Post's account.
The Surrogate Court, a landmarked building at 31 Chambers Street, and 22 Reade Street, which houses the Department of City Planning, are among the other city properties the Post lists as carrying sidewalk sheds in the same cluster near the Municipal Building. The Department of Citywide Administrative Services' own materials note that 2 Lafayette Street houses multiple city agencies and that the city assumed title to the building in January 1981, according to the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services.
A Citywide Pattern of Sheds That Never Come Down
The Lafayette Street building is not an isolated case. A 2023 report from the Manhattan Borough President's Office found that sidewalk sheds built to comply with inspection and repair requirements are too often left standing for months or even years, with sheds remaining on city streets for an average of 498 days. As of March 2026, the Mayor's office reported 7,859 active sidewalk sheds covering roughly 380 miles of sidewalk citywide, though the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review has cited a separate estimate of as many as 8,500 sheds, a discrepancy that remains unresolved between the two counts.
Despite a reported 17% decline from peak shed levels by March 2026, 372 sheds had remained standing for at least five years as of that same month, per data from The Shed Registry. One shed, at 154 Parkside Avenue in Brooklyn, has been up on and off for 14 years, according to ABC7 New York, while a shed at 409 Edgecombe Avenue stood for 21 years before its removal in December 2023, according to The Shed Registry. Work also began in August 2024 to disassemble a 329-linear-foot shed at the city-owned Office of Chief Medical Examiner on First Avenue, per the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner.
What Business Owners Are Losing — and What the City Plans to Do
The financial toll on nearby businesses has been well documented. A 2024 city-commissioned study found Manhattan businesses operating under sidewalk sheds saw monthly Mastercard cardholder spending drop between $3,900 and $9,500, and restaurants and bars saw weekly transactions fall 3.5% to 9.7% in the six months after a shed went up, according to the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review and the NYC Mayor's Office. Enforcement against private owners has occasionally been severe: the Buildings Department found the owner of a building where resident Lamar Ballard lives owed $3,529,850 in facade-related civil penalties, while the owner of 900 Grand Concourse owed $4,215,300 in facade fines and was hit with a criminal summons resulting in a $25,000 fine and a misdemeanor conviction, ABC7 New York reports.
City Hall has outlined several fixes it says will speed sheds down across the five boroughs. The Mayor's Office has proposed penalties for keeping sheds up longer than 180 days and would require owners to give the Buildings Department and the public status updates every 90 days, according to the NYC Mayor's Office. The city also plans to shorten shed-permit renewals from annual to every 90 days and to stretch facade-inspection cycles for buildings over six stories from five years to six, while working to approve six new shed designs and introduce drone-assisted inspections this year. The changes followed the city's first review of its facade and safety inspection program in more than 40 years, conducted by Thornton Tomasetti, as reported by ABC7 New York. Buildings Department guidance states that a shed should not come down until the structure is fully enclosed, exterior work is complete, the sash above the second story is glazed, and the facade has been cleaned, according to the NYC Department of Buildings.
