The mystery of the orange barriers

Upper West Side Jane Rosenthal is on a campaign to solve the mystery of the orange barricades.

Rosenthal lives on the corner of 75th St. and Amsterdam Ave., where the construction company VOREA has set up large barricades, blocking off most of the street and knocking several of the rare, alternate-side parking spaces on the street.

When the street was originally blocked off in August, Rosenthal and her neighbors assumed it was nothing more than a regular construction site that would be gone by fall. Instead, little in the way of actual work has happened.

They have only seen a crane used once. Increasingly, the barricaded area is being used to hold garbage -- and for coveted parking spaces for people involved in the construction work.

“It is almost like they use it for their own private parking,” Rosenthal said. “There has been no real construction.” She has spent hours on the phone with 311 hoping to figure out what VOREA is using the barricades for but is never given a straight answer. After filing a complaint with the Department of Transportation, the case was dismissed because “it wasn’t cause for any action.”

Yet the barricades seemed to grow with time, and eventually grew out into the street and crosswalk, making it difficult for cars to make it down the street and difficult for people to access the crosswalk to cross the street. Once Rosenthal realized this was now causing a concern for safety, she reached out to City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal’s office to help get on the issue.

In a letter to the Department of Transportation, Councilmember Rosenthal’s staff outlined the ways the barricades were negatively affecting residents, and probed the permitting process used for them.

“We also ask that you review how the spaces taken by this and other barricade pieces are being used before you renew five permits,” the letter read. “The empty spaces defined by the barricade pieces are seldom used, adding to the frustration of those who drive, live, work, and shop in the neighborhood who must move around them daily.”

Since the first barricade appeared across from her apartment building in August, there have been two other areas in the neighborhood that now have the same large, orange plastic barricades blocking off street parking, and making it difficult for cars and pedestrians to keep traffic flowing.

The second barricade appeared further up on 75th Street by the Beacon theatre, and the third now sits on the north side of 75th St. and Broadway. All three locations were occupied by cargo vans with workers inside eating their lunches, as well as garbage, stray shovels and cinder blocks.

Frederick Rivera lives at another apartment building further down 75th St. that has had the obstructive plastic structures outside for the past few months as well. Rivera isn’t bothered by the lack of parking because he doesn’t own a car but said there is no question something unusual is going on.

“No one really knows who is parking here, it’s like you just have to know the right person,” he said. “I know a lot of people in the neighborhood are starting to get pretty frustrated.”

Jane Rosenthal thinks people are taking advantage of a loophole within the system, and is leading the fight to help protect her community.

“It speaks to a kind of corruption,” she said. “These permits are allowing them to take control of these areas. There are always delays with construction, so this could go on forever. Not only is it unfair, it is unsafe.”