Astoria Co-op Tenants Still Waiting for Gas and Hot Water After a Month

June 12, 2015 — Con Edison seems to be all over the news this week. On April 29, workers responded to a small fire at the Acropolis Gardens co-op. After having discovered "unauthorized piping," they shut the gas off in 8 of the 16 buildings making up the development, which spans from 33rd to 35th streets between Ditmars Boulevard and 21st Avenue. According to DNAinfo, tenants are still waiting for service to be restored and have been without cooking gas or hot water all this time. A spokesperson for the utility company told DNAinfo that "the management company must complete plumbing work and make the buildings safe before [it] can restore service." The management company, in turn, is blaming Con Edison, "saying the company shut off the gas after mistaking a valve that was installed two years ago for a recent installation." Some of the frustrated tenants seem to be pointing the finger at the management company, Metropolitan Pacific Properties. The article reports that "others in the buildings [say] this isn't the first time Acropolis Gardens has been without heat and hot water. Another complained about broken intercom systems and trash piling up in the alleys between buildings." It even quotes one tenant as claiming, outright, that the building is "terribly managed." It's a long time to be without heat and hot water, considering how much money building residents pay in maintenance fees alone — not to mention that the long interruption in service is not due to a gas leak. 

Photo by Scott Bintner for Property Shark