Knickerbocker Village Gets $33.5M To Fortify Buildings

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — A Lower East Side apartment complex home to 3,200 New Yorkers is receiving millions of dollars to help fortify it against future hurricanes, nearly five years after the complex was battered by Superstorm Sandy.

Knickerbocker Village, a 12-building complex with nearly 1,600 apartments, will receive a $33.5 million grant to help restore the buildings and protect it from future natural disasters, local and national elected officials announced on Friday.

The grant will help upgrade the 83-year-old complex's infrastructure in the event that the property, located just two blocks from the East River, is again damaged by a hurricane or other natural disaster. Knickbocker Village is home to predominantly low- and moderate-income families, including many seniors and first-generation immigrants.

The grant for Knickerbocker Village comes as Puerto Rico desperately pleads for federal assistance in the wake of the devastating Hurricane Maria last week.

U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat who represents the Lower East Side in Washington D.C., spoke passionately on Friday about the role that the federal government plays in the wake of natural disasters.

“This is testament of the role of the federal government,” she said on Friday, her voice full of emotion. “This is what we need to do. When natural disasters strike, the federal government doesn’t need to ask questions. We have to show up and put the resources that are needed in order to make our communities whole.”

Velázquez added that resiliency investments like those coming to Knickerbocker Village were critical, because “global warming is here to stay.”

The congresswoman also took a jab at President Donald Trump, who she has heavily criticized for responding too slowly to the devastation in Puerto Rico.

“When you get elected to office, you gotta show up and do the work,” Velázquez said, deviating from her prepared remarks. “Don’t spend your time with nonsensical stuff, forget about athletes, because we lost seven days that were crucial. We have the most powerful army in the world. Send them down to puerto rico get them whole again, that is our moral responsibility.”

The grant for Knickerbocker was distributed by the city’s Housing Preservation and Development department. Council Member Margaret Chin, Manhattan borough president Gale Brewer, Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou and public advocate Tish James joined the HPD commissioner Maria Torres-Springer and Velázquez for Friday's announcement. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The money will fund a number of critical upgrades, with construction beginning in the near future and expected to take several years to complete. The grant will go towards four new emergency generators, which will provide electricity so that basic building functions like elevators can operate in the wake of a natural disaster. Most of the 12-story buildings at Knickerbocker Village were without power for up to three weeks after Sandy hit, stranding many home-bound senior residents to their apartments and without a way to access critical resources. Vincent Callagy, the complex’s general manager, explained that the Village had access to no generators in the immediate aftermath of the storm because demand citywide was so high. The new grant will purchase brand new generators so that backup power is always available.

The grant will also fund infrastructure updates to buildings in the complex, including additions like flood-resistant doors and walls and elevating building systems when possible. When Sandy hit, the basements of Knickerbocker buildings were almost immediately flooded with up to 70 inches of water, officials said, completing disabling the entire complex’s electrical and elevator systems.

Torres-Springer, the HPD commissioner, noted during her remarks that all of the elected officials next to her at the podium were women, and commended the partnership between local and federal elected officials in acquiring the grant.

“We need more women in office,” Velázquez said during her remarks. “We know how to get a thing done. Sometimes high levels of testosterone really interfere with the work that we need to do in order to make people’s lives whole again.”

Image credit: Ciara McCarthy / Patch