Stack Work Advances While Answers Do Not

HPD told the CAG there was no projected start date and that five business days’ notice would be given. Work on the eastern smokestack began six days later.

On June 17 and 18, HPD told the first meeting of the Roosevelt Island Steam Plant Demolition Community Advisory Group that smokestack demolition had no projected start date. Residents and the CAG would receive at least five business days’ advance notice once a date was set. Scaffolding around the stacks could not proceed until soil removal and backfill were complete and the area stabilized. A soil-removal work plan tied to DEC Spill #2508914 was still under finalization.

The Community Advisory Group was scoped from the outset to address how demolition could proceed safely, how milestones would be communicated, and how community concerns would be handled. Residents were told the forum was not the place to debate whether demolition should occur, whether adaptive reuse had been considered, or whether underlying engineering and environmental records justified the decision to raze the structure.

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HPD Deputy Commissioner AnnMarie Santiago stated at the CAG that the June 12 DEP inspection had identified additional asbestos-containing materials requiring further sampling, laboratory analysis, and updated filings. Asbestos abatement, which began May 18, was reported as roughly 30 percent complete and expected to continue for another three to four months. Structural demolition of the stacks and main building had no projected start date. Scaffolding around the stacks depended on prior soil remediation and stabilization. HPD committed to a Community Air Monitoring Plan for the demolition phase, with perimeter monitors for dust and organic vapors and work stoppage if thresholds were exceeded.

The Stated vs. the Active Reality

By June 26, according to dated photographs and observations provided by Kalin Kresnitchki of the Architectural Community Alliance of Roosevelt Island, masonry removal and undercutting appeared to be underway on the eastern smokestack. Debris trucks were documented moving material during school pickup hours. A large area of soil south of the visible red separation membrane appeared exposed. The agencies have not publicly clarified whether the DEP stop-work order issued after the June 12 asbestos inspection remained in effect for this activity, was lifted, or was modified. No public notice of the work has been issued.

The photographs and observations Kresnitchki provided do not appear to align with the sequencing and notice conditions HPD described six days earlier. The agencies have not publicly confirmed the permits authorizing the activity shown, the testing performed on stack residue and debris, the engineering controls in place for undercutting without full scaffolding, or the status of community air monitoring at the time.

Questions That Directly Affect Public Safety

The unanswered questions are public-safety questions that directly affect the people who live, work, and move closest to the site. The Roosevelt Island Day Nursery sits directly across from the work and serves children as young as twelve months old. Schools line the Main Street haul route. Older adults with respiratory or immune vulnerabilities live in nearby buildings. The Racquet Club’s air-supported structures draw outside air into enclosed spaces where people exercise. Tram users, pedestrians on public walkways, and visitors to Firefighters Field and the pool are also in the potential path of dust, debris, and airborne contaminants. When permits, test results, air-monitoring records, and stop-work status remain unproduced, those receptors have no verified basis on which to assess their exposure.

Kresnitchki’s June 26 email asked the agencies to clarify several key points raised by the visible activity at the site. Photographs dated March 1, 2026 show an excavator actively demolishing the lower level of the building with substantial rubble already present. Later photographs from June 26 show continued masonry removal and undercutting on the eastern smokestack, along with truck movements removing material. HPD told the CAG on June 17–18 that there was no projected start date for smokestack demolition and that the community would receive five business days’ notice before demolition resumed. The DEP stop-work order issued after the June 12 inspection remained in effect according to the public record at that time. Despite this, material removal continued without confirmation that live community air monitoring was in place.

HPD confirmed at the CAG that stack residue had been tested for asbestos only. In his June 26 email, Kresnitchki asked the agencies to confirm whether the DEP stop-work order remains in effect and what permits authorize the masonry removal and undercutting visible on the eastern stack. He sought clarification on testing performed beyond asbestos, the status of any community air monitoring plan, engineering controls for the sequence shown, and how removed debris is being classified and handled. He also asked what interim protections exist for the area of contaminated soil that appears exposed in the photographs and whether the basement structure visible there had already been demolished during earlier underground oil tank removal work, and under what authorization that structural demolition occurred when the main building demolition permit has not been issued.

As of July 1, ArchRI had not received any response from HPD, DEP, RIOC, DOB, or DEC to the questions raised.

The Record the Agencies Can Still Produce

The agencies announced sequencing, notice, and testing standards in a recorded public meeting. Physical work on the eastern stack then advanced without apparent fulfillment of those conditions. The public record does not yet contain the permits, test results, engineering approvals, or air-monitoring documentation that would demonstrate compliance with the standards HPD itself set. When agencies that establish the rules do not produce the records that would test whether those rules are being followed, the rules become optional in practice. The gap is sustained by the absence of answers.

The fourteen questions sent on June 26 are now part of the public record. The agencies can close the contradiction by producing written answers, the permits in force, the results of testing beyond asbestos, the engineering approvals for the observed sequence, the current status of the Community Air Monitoring Plan, and confirmation of whether the DEP stop-work order remained in effect, was lifted, or was modified for the work shown. Until they do, the clearest fact in the record is the gap between what was stated publicly on June 18 and what appears to have occurred at the site six days later.

Even with the limited information the agencies have chosen to release, some important pieces of the timeline have become clearer. What remains entirely absent is any explanation for why the work proceeded in the manner it did, or why the demolition is happening at all. The agencies have offered no account of why material removal continued while a stop-work order was in effect, why basic safeguards such as community air monitoring were not confirmed during that period, or why the public was left without the notice HPD itself had said would be provided. They have also provided no explanation of whether the decision to demolish the Steam Plant was connected, officially or otherwise, to the land lease extension negotiations between the City and the State. While it is not possible to determine whether this level of secrecy stems from routine institutional resistance or from deeper arrangements to clear the site, the coordinated silence across HPD, DEP, DOB, RIOC, and DEC suggests the full story extends well beyond what has been made visible.

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Update, July 3–6: Post-publication, Kalin Kresnitchki forwarded partial agency responses confirming the full stop-work order was modified to partial. Additional site documentation and slides shared. The core gaps in public notice, sequencing, full testing, and transparent air monitoring records remain unclosed in the public record. We will continue tracking responses to the 14 questions submitted.