Following widespread criticism of the city’s response time to restoring essential utilities to its public housing and a controversial tweet from Mayor Bloomberg, power, heat and elevator service has officially been restored to all of New York City’s public housing complexes, Brownstoner reported.
In the nearly three weeks that it took the city to repair its 402 residential buildings without electricity and 386 buildings without heat and hot water — outages affecting some 80,000 residents — tenants grew increasingly impatient. Last week residents of the Red Hook Houses called for a rent strike and a lawsuit against NYCHA after living without heat, hot water or electricity for more than two weeks. But since last Thursday morning, 20 of the 32 Red Hook Houses buildings without heat and hot water regained both and now all 32 have been fully restored.
After Sandy, the city was faced with a massive number of boilers, elevators, as well as plumbing and electrical systems that were in need of repair. Many public housing complexes required the help of third-party cleaning crews, contractors, utility companies and city, state and federal agencies.[Brownstoner] —Christopher Cameron