Eight months after cooking gas went out at Borinquen Plaza in East Williamsburg, residents are still boiling water on single electric burners and wondering if their stoves will work again before the holidays. The outage spans both 101 Humboldt St. and 330 Bushwick Ave., and with Thanksgiving closing in, families say they still have no idea when the gas will come back on.
Residents have been without cooking gas for eight months, according to News 12 Brooklyn, which traced the outage back to Feb. 18, when firefighters evacuated the 101 Humboldt St. building after carbon monoxide levels rose inside during an outside manhole fire. The New York City Housing Authority's own outage tracker lists building-wide gas outages at both addresses, according to the outlet.
Betsy Lopez, whose parents have lived at 101 Humboldt St. since 1998, told the station the situation is unfair to them. NYCHA gave her parents a single electric burner, she said, along with a slow cooker that hasn't worked well for them — so instead they've been relying on an appliance given to them by a friend just to make rice, meat and beans.
A Slow Cooker That Takes All Day
Theresa, a resident who has lived at 101 Humboldt St. for more than 30 years and is raising two children on her own, said the electric burner she received doesn't work at all. She told News 12 that food she placed in the slow cooker at 11 a.m. still wasn't ready by 11 p.m. — forcing her household to eat out every day and cut back elsewhere each month to cover the cost.
Lopez also raised a safety concern tied to another unresolved repair: the bathroom light in her parents' apartment doesn't work, and she worries her mother could fall while still recovering from knee surgery. Lopez said gas repair updates from the agency come too far apart, and that appointment changes sometimes force her to rearrange her work schedule so she can be there to translate for her parents. Some tenants, the station reported, declined to speak on camera because they doubt speaking up will get their gas restored any faster.
Sewage Leak Adds to the Frustration
The gas outage isn't the only infrastructure problem the buildings have faced recently. News 12 reported that sewage leaked onto the sidewalk at 330 Bushwick Ave. last month, which NYCHA attributed to a collapsed waste line.
On Wednesday, the outlet observed workers entering and leaving 101 Humboldt St., and one worker said crews were working on the gas. NYCHA said it has replaced all gas risers in both buildings and has also replaced the pipes carrying gas between floors. The agency said it is now performing specialized welding in common areas to restore gas to both buildings, and that welding is underway in shared spaces as part of that effort.
No Timeline for Repairs
NYCHA said gas service restoration requires shutdowns, repairs, inspections and coordination with service vendors, but the agency has not provided a date for when cooking gas will return. The authority advised residents needing assistance to call its customer contact center at 718-707-7771 or submit work tickets through MyNYCHA.
That lack of a timeline weighs heavily as the holidays approach. Lopez said residents want to host their grandchildren for Thanksgiving but can't figure out how they would even cook a turkey without working gas.
Part of a Wider Pattern Across NYCHA
Borinquen Plaza's outage fits into a broader pattern across the city's public housing stock. A report cited by NY1 found that NYCHA gas outages average 89 days — far shorter than what Borinquen Plaza residents describe. NY1 also reported that residents at the Bronx's Mitchel Houses said they lacked heat or cooking gas more than a month after a chimney explosion there.
At the time of a separate report, CBS New York said NYCHA listed 92 buildings with no gas, some under repair since May, and noted that a boiler explosion at the JP Mitchel Houses complex on Oct. 1 cut cooking gas to the entire complex, affecting more than 3,000 residents. Five weeks after that explosion, cooking gas at Mitchel Houses remained out of service even though NYCHA had restored hot water on Oct. 4 and heat on Oct. 8, according to the outlet. CBS New York separately reported that Queensbridge Houses tenants in Long Island City said they'd gone without cooking gas for several weeks, and that NYCHA's hot-plate replacements left residents dissatisfied.
Outages have also dragged on for months at Red Hook Houses, where The City Reporter described the disruptions as having become almost normal over at least five years. A 2020 report cited by the outlet found average gas-outage repairs there took 125 days, compared with 17 days for private landlords, and nearly 100 households were still without gas almost a week after NYCHA shut off service in two buildings following a basement leak. More than 40 Red Hook residents eventually filed a civil lawsuit demanding NYCHA restore gas service, provide rent reductions and reimburse legal fees, the report noted.
What the Law Requires
City Limits reported that 56 NYCHA developments had gas outages when a bill addressing the problem was introduced in 2021, and cited Mayor's Management Report figures showing the average repair time for specified emergency work orders fell from 27 hours and 49 minutes in fiscal year 2023 to 20 hours and 43 minutes in fiscal year 2024. Under New York's Public Buildings Law, NYCHA is required to remedy gas-service interruptions as expeditiously as practicable, including applying for necessary repair permits and coordinating with agencies and gas corporations on a restoration plan, according to the New York State Senate.
For now, families at Borinquen Plaza are left waiting, with no restoration date and a holiday approaching that normally revolves around a working stove.
