The residents of 140 Cadman Plaza West, a 250 unit middle-income Mitchell-Lama co-op in Brooklyn Heights, have complained for years about the 24/7 construction noise and pollution inflicted on them by the Brooklyn Bridge repair project. Their co-op is directly south of the bridge, and residents have reported sleepless nights and health problems from 2 a.m. jackhammering, construction vehicle commotion, bright nighttime lights and backup beeping — with little relief from the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT), they say.
Now the co-op’s residents are bracing for another onslaught, in the form of the roughly seven-year reconstruction of a rapidly deteriorating length of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE), from Sands Street to Atlantic Avenue. The $1.8 billion rehab — one of the most complex and expensive repairs ever undertaken by DOT — will include rebuilding the Triple Cantilever underpinning the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. In a March 12 letter to DOT and officials, co-op board President Ted Valand wrote, “Our experience with the Brooklyn Bridge project taught us that in addition to normal work-hour and work-week construction noise and pollution, project contractors (apparently with relative ease) were able to secure approvals for unrestricted activities on a 24/7 basis.”
In an email to the Brooklyn Eagle, Valand called the experience, “Pretty hellish, particularly when they went 24/7.”
