UES Co-Op Fined $20K For Locked, Crumbling 'Public Space,' City Says

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — An Upper East Side co-op building has been fined $20,000 by the city for shutting off access to a public plaza and allowing it to deteriorate, according to the Department of Buildings.

The plaza sits at the rear of Park Regis, a 33-story apartment tower at the rear of 50 East 89th St., between Park and Madison avenues. As a "privately-owned public space," it must be kept open to the public at all hours of the day through an agreement with the city.

But when city inspectors stopped by the plaza in May 2019, they found that its fence had been chained and locked without permission, a Department of Buildings spokesperson told Patch.

Other changes to the plaza's design had also been made without permission, including the removal of children's play equipment and nearly two-thirds of its landscaping, according to DOB.

A hearing on the two zoning violations set for September 2019 was pushed back until June 2022, DOB said.

Meanwhile, in March of this year, DOB did another routine inspection and found the plaza was "in a state of disrepair," with areas of cracked, loose and missing bricks that created a tripping hazard, according to the agency.

In separate hearings in June and July with the city's Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, the co-op was fined $15,000 for the 2019 violations and $5,000 for the more recent disrepair, DOB said.

Patch could not locate contact information for the Park Regis Apartment Corporation, which represents the co-op's collective owners. An attorney who recently represented the corporation in an unrelated lawsuit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

These are not the first complaints to be directed at the plaza, which has an entrance on East 88th Street. In a database of privately-owned public spaces maintained by the Municipal Art Society, three people reported that Park Regis's "POPS" had been unlawfully closed between 2000 and 2019.