Tenants are heated over being left in the cold

Waking up to frigid air, boiling water to make steam and huddling around space heaters have become unpleasant facts of life for tenants at the Promenade in Marble Hill. 

Residents who live in the 318-unit, 32-story Mitchell-Lama building that towers above the Harlem River say that they have been suffering with little or no heat or hot water for weeks and that the problem was only exacerbated as temperatures dipped into the teens over the weekend. 

“This is the first day in maybe seven weeks that I took a shower and I’m a New York City teacher,” said Al Britton, who noted that her adult autistic son lives in the apartment with her.  

Her Chihuahua, Chocolate, has to walk around the apartment with a coat, she said.

When she complains to RY Management, which has had 83 complaints of insufficient heat, hot water or both lodged against it with the city’s department of Housing Preservation and Development from a variety of tenants since the beginning of the year, she said she only gets “the runaround.” 

“[They] tell you the water’s hot; the boiler’s fixed; there’s nothing wrong with it,” she said. 

And that’s when she is able to talk to someone. Usually, she said, she just gets voicemail. 

When contacted on Monday, Don Miller of RY Management said a problem with the boiler had been fixed that morning, but drafty apartments, vocal tenants and an HPD violation issued that same day for insufficient heat told a different story.

One tenant, who would only be identified as E. Hernandez, said she works as a special education teacher in the Bronx and has been using the stove, a space heater and the good-old-fashioned sunshine to warm up in the morning. In addition to the chill, she said the conditions bring back bad memories. 

“I grew up in a cold tenement all my life,” she said, noting that she did not expect to be shivering now since she pays a significant amount for rent.

After Ms. Britton heard there were reporters in the building, she rushed to the elevator on her way to tell her story — and said she promptly got stuck.

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