A long-derelict state-owned building at 1024 Fulton St. in Clinton Hill, which THE CITY has reported on for years, may finally be headed for rebirth after nearly half a century of vacancy, political detours and collapsed redevelopment plans.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday announced the selection of a nonprofit development partnership to transform the site into a $111 million mixed-use project featuring 125 permanently affordable apartments, a 27,000-square-foot intergenerational community center and a health clinic.

The proposal — led by Fifth Avenue Committee, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation and One Brooklyn Health — was chosen through a competitive process run by Empire State Development. The project would be 100% nonprofit-owned, a key demand voiced by local residents during a series of community workshops over the past year.

“New York is proving that when we leverage state-owned land and listen to communities, we can build the affordable housing that our neighborhoods and our state needs,” Hochul said in a statement. 

If built as envisioned, the roughly 149,000-square-foot development would include apartments — ranging from studios to three-bedroom units — for households earning between 30% and 80% of Area Median Income. Plans also call for a community center operated by Fort Greene Council, and a 1,000-square-foot health clinic run by One Brooklyn Health. The building would be designed to “passive house” energy efficient standards and include all-electric systems and a green roof.

The announcement marks the latest — and most concrete — attempt to revive a property that has stood boarded up through decades of neighborhood change.

Originally opened in 1912 as a Brooklyn Union Gas appliance showroom, the three-story structure has been vacant for close to 50 years. The city took it over in 1986 for unpaid taxes, and the state purchased it in 1997 with plans to create a community facility. That idea was scrapped after officials discovered major structural problems.

Since then, THE CITY has documented how multiple efforts to redevelop or sell the property have unraveled.

In 2014, then-Assemblymember Walter Mosley intervened to halt an open-market sale of the building, arguing it should be steered toward an affordable housing outcome. A nonprofit selected through special legislation ultimately failed to produce a viable plan. 

Subsequent proposals — including one that Mosley predicted would break ground by summer 2020 — also fell apart.

Last year, the state moved toward demolition, estimating it could take more than two years just to clear the structure.

Now, state officials say the new proposal reflects extensive community input gathered in late 2024 and early 2025, when more than 150 residents participated in workshops about the site’s future. Housing for low-income New Yorkers and space for seniors and children emerged as top priorities during those community talks.

In a statement, Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the project “a declaration that our city can and must deliver an affordability agenda that puts people before profit.” 

Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest (D-Brooklyn), who represents the area, and other local elected officials have long pushed the state to move more urgently on the property. Neighbors have long described the location as a persistent blight on a stretch of Fulton Street that has otherwise boomed.

To advance the project, the state’s Office of General Services will oversee demolition of the existing building. The development must still undergo public review before final approval under an Empire State Development General Project Plan.

State officials estimate construction will generate roughly 350 jobs, with commitments to exceed 35% MWBE participation and 30% local hiring.

Housing and Planning Deputy Mayor Leila Bozorg framed the project as part of a broader push to build on publicly owned land.

“Delivering affordable housing on publicly-owned land,” she said in a statement, “is a key component of building a city that New Yorkers can afford.”

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The former head of the NYPD’s School Safety Division solicited and accepted bribes from the CEO of a Florida-based tech company in a bid to snag a multi-million deal to put his panic button software in New York City’s public schools, federal prosecutors charged Thursday.

The former NYPD chief, Kevin Taylor, and the executive, Geno Roefaro of Saferwatch, were both arrested and charged with bribery. 

Starting in July 2023, Roefaro plied Taylor with $70,000 in cash and vacations for him and an unnamed female paramour to the Bahamas and Las Vegas, the indictment alleges. The Vegas bribe included tickets to a helicopter tour and a “medieval-themed dinner theater,” the indictment says.

The alleged bribes were part of a broader scheme by Saferwatch to snag a major city contract that also involved three brothers: ex-Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks, III, ex-Schools Chancellor David Banks (both appointees of former Mayor Eric Adams) and Terence Banks.

As part of this campaign, Saferwatch hired a consultant firm Terence set up, enabling it to set up meetings with both of his brothers, Philip and David, as first reported by THE CITY.

That CITY article caused Taylor to worry that his behind-the-scenes effort to transform a pilot program he had set up for Saferwatch into an $11 million contract would be exposed, prosecutors revealed in their 29-page indictment.

The case brought by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton alleges that Taylor “on multiple occasions” boasted to vendors seeking contracts about his close ties to Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Banks. Records show Taylor met with Philip Banks about the “panic button.”

The indictment says Saferwatch began its campaign to win a big New York City contract in the summer of 2022, the first year of the Adams administration. 

The company first hired former City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who met with David Banks in December 2022 and then with Philip Banks and his chief of staff in January 2023, pitching the firm’s product. 

But at some point, Saferwatch also hired Terence Banks’ firm, and Philip Banks later confirmed he’d spoken with his brother about the firm.

According to records reviewed by THE CITY, Philip Banks met with Taylor a few days after the pitch by Johnson. In September, Taylor arranged a no-bid purchase order of $19,000 to start a pilot program at five schools. That November, Taylor testified to the City Council that he planned to roll the panic button out citywide.

In between, prosecutors say, Roefaro began handing Taylor wads of cash, starting with $20,000, then $15,000, then another $35,000, while Taylor began recommending to his superiors that the NYPD award Saferwatch the $11 million contract.

The CEO also allegedly funded the Vegas vacation that September that included air fare, a luxury hotel room, a helicopter tour of the city and a night of retro fun at a “medieval-themed dinner theater.” That was followed in November by a trip to the Bahamas, the indictment alleges.

By that December, however, Roefaro began to complain that all of his payments to Taylor weren’t turning into an actual contract. Using the encrypted Signal app, he texted Taylor, “I’ve got nothing from you brother and I’m already in for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Taylor responded, “You got nothing from me? You can’t play with the big boys and piss like a puppy.” (Prosecutors say they were able to recover some Signal conversations because the participants screen-grabbed and saved them.)

With the end of 2023 approaching, Roefaro’s tone darkened dramatically. In a Dec. 22, 2023 text to Taylor, he wrote, “It’s been fun but it’s not fun or funny anymore.” Demanding results by end of year, he stated, “If not I’m fucked and you don’t want me to be fucked. I’m both your whore and your sugar daddy all in one. I need you to take this seriously.”

Taylor got as far as arranging a mid-January 2024 press conference with Department of Education officials to announce a deal with Saferwatch, but at the last minute, the event was cancelled. Saferwatch didn’t get any contracts, and Taylor was removed from his role as commanding officer of the School Safety Division a few weeks later, demoted to a lesser role within the NYPD.

That Sept. 4, the FBI and city Department of Investigation seized the cell phones of several top officials in the Adams administration, including Philip and David Banks, as well as electronic devices from Terence Banks, as first reported by THE CITY. Saferwatch received a subpoena at the same time.

Five days later, when THE CITY published a story describing Saferwatch’s hiring of Terence Banks and meeting with his brothers, Taylor texted a link of the story to an unidentified individual expressing concern that Saferwatch’s CEO “could incriminate Taylor if approached by law enforcement.”

The unidentified individual agreed.

Taylor’s attorney, Richard Langone, and Roefaro’s lawyer, Danya Perry, did not respond to THE CITY’s requests for comment late Thursday.

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani is rescinding a new rule set in motion by his predecessor that would have made it harder for people to get off the streets and into shelters. 

In a statement Tuesday morning, Matt Rauschenbach, a spokesperson for the mayor, said the city had reviewed the rule — which would have required people to prove they’d been homeless or in and out of shelters for at least six months before they could qualify for a low-barrier shelter bed — and decided not to implement it. It was scheduled to take effect this week.

“We will work to establish a new standard that provides the flexibility needed to protect some of the city’s most vulnerable residents and ensure they can be placed into shelter,” Rauschenbach said. 

THE CITY first reported on the rule change last week during a deep freeze that left 18 dead and saw outreach workers scrambling to get people off the streets and into shelters, hospitals or warming centers.

Low-barrier shelter beds offer an alternative to large-scale group shelters, with fewer rules and more privacy. People living on New York City streets and subways often say they’re willing to come indoors to a safe haven or stabilization bed, but won’t go to a congregate shelter, where they’ve often had negative experiences.

Mamdani had been under pressure to walk the rule change back. On Monday he received a letter from several nonprofits that work with street homeless New Yorkers urging him to reconsider. 

“To require people experiencing unsheltered homelessness to endure months of street homelessness or bounce in and out of congregate shelter for an extended period before offering assistance is cruel and antithetical to the goals of low-barrier shelter,” a letter from 10 local nonprofits reads. “Low-barrier shelter exists precisely because traditional systems fail to meet people where they are.”

Under Mayor Eric Adams, the Department of Social Services first tried to change the rule in 2024 and exclude asylum seekers from those low-barrier beds. After the city was sued by the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, DSS walked the change back and began a process to change the rule formally with public notice and a hearing last fall.

Mamdani’s revocation of the new rule comes as Molly Wasow Park, the Commissioner of the Department of Social Services and a holdover from the Adams administration, announced her resignation, which was first reported on by Gothamist. 

Park is set to testify before the City Council Tuesday morning about the sub-zero temperatures that contributed to the deaths of 18 New Yorkers, many of whom had contact with the city’s shelter system.

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This article is co-reported with The Markup, a nonprofit, investigative newsroom that challenges technology to serve the public good. Sign up for its newsletters.

In a press conference this week on New York City’s $12 billion budget gap, Mayor Zohran Mamdani zeroed in on the previous administration’s artificial intelligence chatbot as one of “a number of different things we’re going to pursue for savings.”

The chatbot, which was released by the Eric Adams administration in fall of 2023, was meant to provide business owners with an accessible way to check city rules and regulations. But as first documented by The Markup and THE CITY, the bot provided answers that, if followed, would lead to illegal behavior by businesses, like taking a cut of employees’ tips.

A spokesperson for the mayor, Dora Pekec, confirmed in a text message that the new administration plans to take down the chatbot. She said a member of the Mamdani transition team had seen reporting on the bot from The Markup and THE CITY and presented it to the mayor as a possible place to save funds. 

At the press conference, Mamdani blamed Adams for the budget shortfall, saying he had been handed “a poisoned chalice.” To close the deficit, he said he would raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations and look “under the hood” of the city’s budget for potential savings. 

When pressed by reporters on what he might cut, he singled out the chatbot.

“The previous administration had an AI chatbot that was functionally unusable,” Mamdani said. “It was costing the administration around half a million dollars. That, in and of itself, is not something that can bridge this kind of a gap, but it’s an indication of the ways in which money has been spent while refusing to account for the actual costs of what these programs are.”

The bot, built using Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, was part of an ambitious overhaul of digital services in New York called MyCity. The project was meant to streamline access to government but was criticized for relying on outside contractors. 

It wasn’t clear how much it cost to maintain the chatbot. Just building the bot’s foundations reportedly cost nearly $600,000, close to the figure Mamdani provided. Pekec said they didn’t yet have a date for taking down the bot. 

Broken Bot

Testing by The Markup and THE CITY in 2024 showed that, despite promises from the Adams administration, the chatbot would confidently provide incorrect and potentially harmful information to visitors, even on high-stakes topics.

When asked about housing policy, for example, the bot suggested landlords could discriminate against tenants with Section 8 vouchers. Despite being an intended resource for business owners, the bot didn’t know the minimum wage, and told users it was fine to refuse to accept cash for payment despite a city law to the contrary, enacted in 2020.

After The Markup and THE CITY’s initial report was published, readers continued peppering the bot with sometimes farcical questions, which it continued failing to answer properly. The Adams administration defended the bot, saying it would improve over time. 

“We’re identifying what the problems are, we’re gonna fix them, and we’re going to have the best chatbot system on the globe,” Adams said at a press conference. “People are going to come and watch what we’re doing in New York City.”

City administrators soon added disclaimers to the bot advising users to “not use its responses as legal or professional advice.” They also improved some of the bot’s answers, but also appeared to limit the kinds of questions the tool was willing to answer. 

Today, the bot advises visitors to “ask an NYC government question only” and cautions that “responses may occasionally produce inaccurate or incomplete content.” Visitors must agree to accept the bot’s limitations before using it. 

Updated on Feb. 5, 2026: The city has taken down the chatbot, writing on the bot’s web page that its “beta test has ended” and directing visitors to NYC.gov for government information.

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Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said on Tuesday he takes “seriously” an audit that determined a key fund that pays insurance premiums for city workers, retirees and their dependents is insolvent.

He also sought to reassure city workers concerned about what the bombshell findings by Comptroller Brad Lander may mean for their health care. Lander’s probe, released Tuesday, found that the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund has amassed upwards of $3.1 billion in unpaid liabilities as a result of what his auditors described as years of misuse by City Hall and the Municipal Labor Committee, which represents public-sector unions. The city and the MLC jointly manage the fund, which is paid for by taxpayers.

Lander — whose last day in office is Wednesday — recommended dissolving the fund. Both the city Office of Labor Relations under Mayor Eric Adams and the unions say they have used the funds for intended purposes.

It will be up to Mamdani, who takes office Thursday, to make up for the multi-billion-dollar shortfall.

“To city workers I will say, each and every day, that this will be an administration that takes your concerns seriously and looks to do more than that, it looks to actually deliver on them,” he told THE CITY at an unrelated press conference at Elmhurst Hospital where he announced two new appointments and the nomination of Steven Banks, the city’s former social services commissioner, for corporation counsel.

“And the report, as well as any other analysis, is something that we are going to take seriously as we assume office in a few days,” added Mamdani.

Lander was the first comptroller to ever audit the fund in its 40-year history. Fiscal watchdogs applauded the move, saying it was a long time coming.

Ana Champeny, a budget expert with the fiscally conservative Citizens Budget Commission, noted that the group first asked the Comptroller’s Office to audit the fund nearly 15 years ago, when the office was led by John Liu and unions, the administration of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the City Council were discussing tapping the Health Insurance Stabilization Fund to pay for benefits unrelated to its purpose of helping pay insurance premiums. 

The group requested answers to questions such as: Who has custody over the stabilization fund, what is the current account balance, how are the funds invested and what is the performance record of those investments?

It is unclear if Liu’s office ever responded. He is now a state senator and could not be immediately reached for comment.

As the stabilization fund ran dry, the city began to pay for premiums and supplemental benefits through its general fund adding up to what it says is more than $4 billion — and tried to force the fund to pay up, according to correspondence between the city’s labor negotiators and the MLC. The dispute exploded into public view in April, when the MLC sued the city in an attempt to block arbitration.

“It’s a house of cards that has fallen apart,” Champeny said of the stabilization fund, and lauded Lander’s probe. 

“I think they have uncovered some real challenges with how the city has been funding health benefits that need to be public, that need to be transparent, and fundamentally need to be resolved in a more sustainable way going forward,” she said.

The audit also describes a controversial proposed move to a lower-cost Medicare Advantage plan for city retirees as being a direct response to projections of the fund’s looming insolvency — a conclusion the city and the unions do not dispute. Mayor Eric Adams abandoned that switch after massive pushback from retirees advocates that included a lengthy legal battle.

Retiree advocates and rank-and-file union members who for years have spoken up in opposition to their union leadership on the Medicare Advantage switch and warned of the looming crisis described the comptroller’s findings as validating. 

NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees president Marianne Pizzitola said in a statement on Tuesday: “To Comptroller Lander and his team, job well done.”

Her group has been a thorn in the side of the MLC, which she said sought to rescue the fund at the expense of retired civil servants who would have received inferior care under the lower-cost Medicare program.

“He affirmed everything we’ve been saying. And when you think back to everything that we’ve been through, fundraising to continue to fight, to keep litigating,” said Pizzitola. “We were ridiculed. And the entire time, we were right.”

The United Federation of Teachers, a powerful MLC member that signed onto the health deal but renounced the planned Medicare Advantage switch, dismissed the audit’s conclusion that the fund was limited to only help pay for health insurance premiums, under a three-decade-old agreement.

“We don’t agree with that finding. It was a collectively bargained fund and it has always been used for health care,” said Alison Gendar, a UFT spokesperson.

She instead pointed to health industry economics as the problem that needs addressing. “Price gouging in the health care industry continues to threaten premium-free health care for city workers. Only by curbing this greedy practice can we protect municipal employees from paying premiums,” said Gendar.

Daniel Alicea, a United Federation of Teachers member and a longtime critic of the MLC, said he was disturbed by the auditors’ finding that multiple mayors and the unions agreed to transfer billions in lump sum payments from the fund to the unions’ individual, independently managed welfare funds.

“Here are taxpayer dollars going to welfare funds that actually act less transparently than the MLC or OLR,” he said referring to the mayor’s Office of Labor Relations. “And so we are seeing, for example, billions of dollars now sitting in reserve, and members don’t have good reporting on it.”

Henry Garrido, the co-chair of the MLC, and spokespeople for Mayor Eric Adams did not respond to THE CITY’s requests for comments on the audit. The MLC and OLR submitted detailed responses to auditors, which are included in the comptroller’s report.

Champeny said that the audit gives the incoming Mamdani administration “some very clear findings and recommendations” to follow through on.

“I would urge them to really go back to the drawing board and try to think about what is the right way to do this, so that we provide competitive, high-quality benefits to city employees at a cost that taxpayers can afford,” said Champeny.

Dean Fuleihan, Mamdani’s pick for first deputy mayor, was City Hall’s budget director in 2014 when then-mayor Bill de Blasio brokered deals with the city’s unions that required dipping into the fund to help pay for city employees’ raises.

At the time, Fuleihan and labor relations commissioner Bob Linn — who is now on Mamdani’s transition committee — touted the use of $1 billion from the stabilization fund as key to what they called a “unique collective bargaining agreement.”

They concluded in their Daily News op-ed: “This isn’t just good news for the city and its workforce; it’s good news for New York City taxpayers and for the long-term fiscal health of our city.”

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An NYPD officer violated New York sanctuary city laws limiting the department’s assistance to federal immigration agencies by accepting a request from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to flag individuals facing deportation, a new Department of Investigation (DOI) report charges.

The officer set the alerts, but ultimately kept that information within the NYPD and did not share it with Homeland Security, according to the report. But the officer was removed from a federal task force because he did not notify his supervisor of the request to provide information to the feds.

In the report, released Wednesday, DOI revealed it looked at five interactions between the NYPD and agencies, including Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that raised questions about whether the department had broken New York City laws that prohibit the NYPD from participating in civil immigration enforcement with limited exceptions.

While ultimately the report found only one one instance of a sanctuary city violation, it revealed new details about some incidents that THE CITY had previously reported on, highlighting the gray areas in the law — particularly in cases where NYPD officers work closely alongside federal agencies that have been deputized to focus on immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump.

The investigative agency determined that in four of the incidents, the department did not break the rules, but that in all the incidents the NYPD “does not fully comply with documentation and reporting requirements” regarding interactions with their federal counterparts.

Local sanctuary laws restrict city government cooperation on immigration enforcement, with some specified exceptions. The DOI’s probe was prompted by a June request from the City Council, which cited THE CITY’s reporting on incidents in which the NYPD interacted with federal authorities.

DOI made seven recommendations advising NYPD to tighten up its reporting and documentation protocols. The NYPD accepted all seven. 

“As the report demonstrates, the NYPD has worked diligently to comply with New York’s sanctuary city laws,” said Brad Weekes, an NYPD spokesperson. “We appreciate DOI’s comprehensive report and have accepted all their recommendations to make our policies even stronger.” 

The DOI’s probe was prompted by a request from the City Council in June. In a joint statement from Councilmember Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) and Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens), the two said the investigation “revealed gaps in NYPD’s compliance with our city’s laws that must be addressed.”

Landed in El Salvador

One of the incidents probed by the DOI involved Merwil Gutiérrez Flores, a 19-year-old asylum-seeker who lived in the Bronx, and whose dealings with law enforcement were reported by THE CITY. 

In February, NYPD officers who were part of a Safe Streets Task Force, comprised of members of the NYPD and FBI, arrested the teen. While he was still in NYPD custody, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark decided not to prosecute him on weapons charges. But instead of releasing Gutiérrez Flores, the NYPD transferred him to the custody of the FBI, which within an hour transferred him to ICE. 

Once in ICE custody, Gutierrez Flores was among the Venezuelans accused of gang affiliation with little evidence, and mostly with no criminal history, shipped off by the administration of President Donald Trump to the notorious El Salvadoran prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT. Gutiérrez Flores, whose detention was first reported by Documented, languished there for 125 days before he was released through a deal with Venezuelan authorities in July.

The DOI investigation found that the department did not violate NYPD policies or local laws because the FBI told the police department that federal prosecutors were considering bringing charges.

Still, the report notes that “the FBI’s decision to transfer Mr. Gutiérrez Flores to ICE within an hour of his release from NYPD custody highlights an important consideration for the NYPD’s policies — even federal agencies not traditionally thought to enforce civil immigration laws, like the FBI, may assist in civil immigration enforcement.”

In this case, the NYPD was alerted by ICE at about 7 p.m. on Feb. 25 that the agency was seeking Gutiérrez Flores on a civil immigration detainer. That request was properly denied by the NYPD, according to DOI, because it wasn’t accompanied by a required judicial warrant. 

It was three hours later, around 10 p.m., that the Bronx district attorney’s office formally notified the department that it would be declining to prosecute Gutiérrez Flores. The report says a lieutenant in the joint task force subsequently communicated with a counterpart at the FBI who said the agency was considering charging him, and that by 10:06 p.m., Gutiérrez Flores was in FBI custody.

Among other incidents inspected by DOI was another reported on by THE CITY, in which an NYPD document of a sealed summons record made its way into the ICE deportation case against a young Palestinian woman named Leqaa Kordia, which was first reported by the Associated Press.

Kordia, a resident of Paterson, N.J., had joined demonstrators outside Columbia University in the spring of 2024 and was arrested along with others in the street that night, in a case that was swiftly dropped and sealed. But nearly a year later a record of that arrest was shared by the NYPD with federal authorities. 

At the time NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the record should have been sealed, but that the NYPD sharing it with federal authorities was above board, because agents with the Homeland Security Investigations had told the NYPD they were investigating Kordia for money laundering. Kordia, however, was never charged with anything, and had only sent some cash payments to family members in Gaza, where dozens of her loved ones had been killed. Kordia has remained in ICE detention for months.

While the DOI found the city’s sanctuary laws hadn’t been violated in this case either, after this incident, the NYPD changed its policies around requests from federal law enforcement, now sending them through NYPD officers assigned to federal task forces, who have complex vetting procedures around requests to assure they don’t touch on civil immigration enforcement. 

Aborted Migrant Shelter Raids

The DOI report also revealed new details about reporting in the New York Times in June about a planned raid Tisch called off at the last minute when she learned the Department of Homeland Security intended to join the NYPD and do a sweep for immigration violations at the Row and the Roosevelt hotels in Manhattan, where the city was housing hundreds of migrants. 

The Times reported that Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, Kaz Daughtry, was involved in planning the raid with federal agents before Tisch got wind of it. 

Digging into the incident, the DOI interviewed several high-ranking NYPD officials about the planning of the March 10 operation, in which NYPD officers intended to make several arrests at the hotels on criminal warrants, along with one arrest by a joint NYPD and Homeland Security Investigations task force focused on gun trafficking. 

But at an event hosted by the Coast Guard on March 5, five days before the intended operation, federal agents told several NYPD officers at the event they intended to send hundreds of officers to New York City to participate in the operation and make arrests for immigration violations. 

Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny learned of their intentions but didn’t advise any superiors of the situation and left for vacation, according to the report. 

At the same event the feds told another NYPD inspector assigned to the operation, who promptly flagged it for superiors. That ultimately got the operation canned by Tisch when she learned of it, the DOI found. 

The DOI also spoke to Daughtry, though it did not draw any conclusions about his involvement. The report however, highlighted conflicting testimony from the two high-ranking officials, Daughtry and Kenny. 

Kenny said he hadn’t warned anyone about the planned ICE involvement, whereas Daughtry told investigators he had spoken with Kenny and told him to report it to Tisch. 

Daughtry also told DOI investigators he didn’t tell ICE about the planned raid. 

“It is unclear how ICE became aware of the NYPD’s planned operation,” the report reads. “DOI did not interview any federal agents in connection with this investigation, including the HSI agents who were part of the task force involved in NYPD’s plans for the Roosevelt and Row Hotel operations.”

Ultimately, the report found, no city resources were expended on immigration enforcement because the joint raid was canceled and thus the city’s sanctuary policies were not violated, but the situation highlighted the need for more training related to this type of occurrence. 

“It appears that the Chief of Detectives did not inform the Legal Bureau or the Police Commissioner of ICE’s planned involvement in the operation,” the report found. “To be clear, the Chief of Detectives never committed City resources toward immigration enforcement; in fact, he informed ICE that the NYPD would not do so. Nevertheless, the Chief of Detectives should have proactively raised ICE’s potential involvement in the NYPD’s operation with the Legal Bureau.”

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In response to the recent boiler explosion and chimney collapse at a Bronx public housing development, an association representing licensed plumbers is calling for an emergency inspection sweep of all New York City Housing Authority boilers to be conducted by its members.

NYCHA’s boilers are supposed to be inspected annually by the Department of Buildings (DOB), the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and NYCHA boiler unit staff who’ve received training.

The Plumbing Foundation City of New York says the authority’s 1,000 boilers are not routinely examined by licensed plumbers. The group also cited THE CITY’s report that 180 boilers — including the device that blew up in The Bronx — have been running without the required certificates to operate or registration because they have not been inspected by DEP for years.

“This is a public safety crisis and the lives of thousands of NYCHA residents are in jeopardy,” said April McIver, executive director of the foundation. She called the explosion at 205 Alexander Ave. in the Mitchel Houses “completely preventable,” adding “our experienced members do not believe this will be an isolated incident.”

The Alexander Avenue boiler exploded the morning of Oct. 1, causing a 20-story chimney running up the side of the building to collapse, raining tens of thousands of bricks down upon the ground next to a basketball court. Somehow, no one was injured.

NYCHA said the boiler had last been examined by DOB in June and inspectors found no safety issues. The authority also acknowledged that the boiler had exploded four years ago, and that it had not been inspected by DEP in 17 years.

NYCHA spokesperson Andrew Sklar acknowledged that the authority employs only a limited number of licensed plumbers who are primarily focused on issues other than boilers. But he said that all NYCHA boilers are subject to an annual inspection by third-party licensed or certified boiler/pressure inspectors and added that NYCHA staff who inspect and maintain the boilers get extensive training.

McIver, said: “NYCHA does not employ enough third-party, private licensed professionals to perform necessary boiler work on a regular basis. In addition, the agency has seemingly failed to provide its internal maintenance crews with adequate training needed to inspect and maintain this equipment over an extended period of time. Relying on these crews with their current training does not appear to work.”

NYCHA, the Buildings Department and the city Department of Investigation (DOI) are now conducting an investigation into the cause of the calamity. THE CITY has reported that safety devices on an off-line boiler may have malfunctioned, allowing gas to build up inside and travel up the chimney. The explosion may have occurred when a NYCHA staffer switched on the boiler.

The foundation is proposing working with DOB, DEP and DOI to have licensed professionals inspect every boiler, perform necessary repairs and ensure that every device has a proper certificate to operate. They note that the city launched a similar sweep of parking garages after the collapse of an aging garage in Lower Manhattan in 2023. An investigation blamed that collapse on a series of mistakes by the owner and an engineering firm hired to inspect the 98-year-old property.

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Three years ago, voters across New York State approved the Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act, which allowed the state to borrow $4.2 billion to pay for projects that would benefit the environment and protect against climate change.

Since then, about $1.07 billion — or just over a quarter of the Bond Act’s value — has been awarded to projects around the state.

As of about a year ago, New York City had received a paltry 2% of the $313 million New York State had deployed, even though the boroughs are home to 40% of the state’s population. In response, elected officials decried the funding formulas that in part led to the disparities.

Since then, New York City’s share has improved. 

New York City has now received over $142.4 million worth of funds — or more than 13.3% of the $1.07 billion allocated so far — for projects in all five boroughs, according to state data.

The awards include $43 million to create a new elevated seven-acre park on the waterfront in East Harlem, between 125th and 132nd streets. The park will become a connector in the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, which will eventually loop around Manhattan. Construction began in October.

Nearly $6 million is slotted for the Department of Environmental Protection to build green street medians in Brooklyn’s East Flatbush and Brownsville, as well as in Baychester and near Soundview Park in The Bronx. The medians, which are in the design phase, will help better absorb rainwater and lessen runoff.

“Over the last year we’ve seen a bit of creativity on the part of the state to help New York City get a bit more of the Bond Act funding, and I’m really grateful for that,” said city Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala. “I think there is certainly more awareness that New York City needs a bit more.”

While public data shows $1.07 billion allocated to 344 projects, millions more dollars are in play. According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, $1.9 billion — or almost half of the full Bond Act funds — has either been awarded to projects that are not yet public, or committed to funding streams that have not yet been disbursed.

The money can pay for stormwater or wastewater management systems, land preservation, flood protection and electric vehicles, among other projects.

“Gov. Kathy Hochul’s leadership is driving the significant progress already made in delivering Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act funding to communities across the state to protect New Yorkers from flooding and other climate impacts, build resiliency, create new recreational access, enhance water quality, and improve quality of life,” said DEC spokesperson Jeff Wernick in a statement. 

More than 41% of the Bond Act money has flowed to so-called disadvantaged communities, which are those that are disproportionately pollution-burdened and more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The state climate law requires at least 35% of climate spending to go to those areas.

Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters, said the pace with which the state has deployed the Bond Act dollars is “impressive.”

“Almost half of the money has already been made available, which is pretty timely given the requirements the state had to go through and the new programs the state had to stand up,” she said. “It’s very valuable to keep the money flowing, but it’s taxpayer dollars, so you always have to be responsible in how it flows and making sure that it’s getting deployed to every corner of the state.”

Other projects awarded funding include almost $3.2 million to the Department of Parks and Recreation to restore the eroded marsh at Turtle Cove, a tidal inlet in The Bronx’s Pelham Bay Park. The Parks Department estimates the project will be done in four or five years.

The Parks Department also got $1 million to go toward reconstructing Carter G. Woodson Children’s Park in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The upgraded park, whose design is expected to be done early next year, is slated to get a new playground, dog run and lighting, among other features. 

The City University of New York will use $50 million in Bond Act funds to install a geothermal system at Brooklyn College, add solar, heat pumps and electric vehicle charging at City College and upgrade the heating system at Hunter College, among other initiatives.

Plus, Bond Act funding paid for over 100 electric school buses for New York City public schools and 30 chargers for the vehicles. Such funding can help districts comply with a state law that mandates all new school buses must be electric beginning in 2027.

“We want to make sure that kids are not riding to school in buses with dirty air,” Tighe said. “This is really a public health issue, and a lot of the bus depots are in communities that are overburdened with pollution.”

The state is still developing new programs to deploy the approximately $2.3 billion that remains. 

Qualified groups and local governments can apply for the funding pots of money through those programs. One of the anticipated programs, worth at least $250 million, will fund voluntary property buyouts in flood-prone areas.

Aggarwala is anticipating applicants may be restricted to about 20% of that funding pot, which would come out to $50 million for New York City.

“That could be anywhere from 20 to 40 homes in New York City,” he said. “It’s not a ton, but it’s something.”

New York City announced plans to conduct its first proactive buyouts of homeowners at flood risk in The Hole, a low-lying neighborhood on the border of Queens and Brooklyn. The city has also been eying other neighborhoods, including in Flushing’s Kissena Park area, for more possible buyouts.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James on Tuesday announced a seven-figure settlement with a Manhattan demolition company, following a sprawling three-year investigation into allegations of workers compensation fraud going back nearly a decade.

Alba Services agreed to pay $1.4 million to nearly 700 workers, many of whom were explicitly instructed by bosses not to file injury claims to the state Workers Compensation Board, investigators and workers said. According to James, the company also instructed workers — non-union and mostly immigrant — to misrepresent to their doctors how and where their workplace injuries occurred. 

In exchange, bosses sometimes offered to pay medical bills under the table, as two former Alba workers told THE CITY in Jan. 2024. The attorney general’s investigation found Alba also retaliated against workers who did file injury claims and failed to address sexual harassment in the workplace.

In all, investigators determined that the company reported less than half of the injuries it was legally required to report. By keeping workplace injury claims artificially low, Alba “reduced its insurance costs and gained an unfair advantage over competitors,” the attorney general’s office said. 

“This was a deliberate system of intimidation and cover up,” said James in announcing the settlement Tuesday. “This settlement sends a clear and concise message: If you retaliate against workers, if you harass women on your work sites, if you manipulate insurance costs or deny benefits, we will bring you to justice.”

James was flanked by members of Laborers’ Local 79, whose complaints to her office on behalf of workers in 2022 prompted the investigation, and members of the New York City District Council of Carpenters.

Among the former Alba workers with James on Tuesday was Alejo, a former welder, who in an interview with THE CITY last year relayed his boss’ unusual request that he not tell hospital staff that he was injured on the job when sparks hit his eye, narrowly avoiding his retina. The father of four also relayed the incident to state prosecutors.

Alejo, who like all the workers at the press conference asked that his last name not be published, said the site foreman paid for a cab to the hospital and said the company would pay his medical bills — a maneuver that the AG’s office said helped Alba conceal injuries and block workers’ comp claims. 

“Justice was made here today,” Alejo, now a foreman and member of Local 79, said on Tuesday. “I don’t want anything to do with Alba personally, but to them I would say: You need to respect your workers.”

Another worker, Carlos, had to fight his bosses to pay a $2,000 hospital bill after his left hand was nearly impaled by a rusty nail in 2016. He was instructed not to go to the hospital — though he went on his own two days later when the wound developed an infection — and was not informed he was eligible for workers’ compensation. By the time he spoke to investigators in 2022, he was told he was past the statute of limitations.

Alba also engaged in increasingly brazen retaliation tactics against workers who filed workers comp claims, going as far as posting flyers listing the names of nearly two dozen workers who had filed injury claims and offering a $5,000 bounty for information leading to their arrests.

Andrew Horan, the company’s owner, also offered cash rewards to his foremen through text messages that the AG’s office said unlawfully exposed workers’ names. In all, investigators found at least 60 occasions in which Alba illegally disclosed workers’ names in connection with workers’ comp claims.

Gregory Morvillo, an attorney for Alba Services, provided a statement: “From day one of the investigation, we welcomed the opportunity to address issues of concern to the Attorney General’s Office. After extensive cooperation in the investigation, Alba opted to enter a settlement — in which they do not admit or deny any conduct — on certain business issues rather than litigate the matters because we wanted to focus on continuing to build the company and, as we repeatedly made clear to the OAG, make sure the company stayed in business and all of the laborers kept their jobs.

“Our focus is now, and has always been, protecting the health of our employees and providing the safest possible work environment for everyone in the Alba family.”

Investigators also found that an Alba foreman also retaliated against women who rejected their romantic advances. María, who worked clean-up for the company for six years before leaving this summer, had her hours reduced to only two days a week after she rejected her foreman’s romantic and sexual overtures. He repeatedly propositioned her via text message, she said, and on one occasion massaged her shoulders on the job. 

María’s complaints to human resources went nowhere, she told THE CITY, and the situation nearly tore her family apart. As part of the settlement, Alba agreed to immediately terminate that foreman.

“This situation devastated my children, and my husband and I almost separated,” she said in Spanish. “I’m eager to turn the page, and I’m grateful to the prosecutors, my union, for helping me speak up.”

Alba’s settlement with the attorney general’s office includes some $1.4 million in restitution payments to 675 employees who were injured on the job between 2016 and 2024. The company also agreed to pay $100,000 for an independent settlement administrator and to submit to three years of oversight by the attorney general’s office.

Though the payout each worker will receive depends on their own unique situation — including the nature of their injuries — each worker will receive a minimum of $1,000, the attorney general’s office said. 

It’s not the first time the company has been in the crosshairs of law enforcement. Horan and Alba were among the two dozen defendants accused of a $5 million kickback and bribery scheme by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in 2022. In August 2024, Horan pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and agreed to an integrity monitor over the company for a period of one year.

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After considering shifting oversight of school safety agents to the office of Chief of Department John Chell, the NYPD is instead placing the division under the office of first deputy commissioner Tania Kinsella, department officials and a department source said. 

The decision was finalized after THE CITY reported last week, based on multiple sources, that the department was moving the agents under Chief of Department John Chell.

The school safety division is currently under the Community Affairs Bureau, and the department’s initial plan to move it under Chell — who has been an architect of some of the department’s more aggressive policing tactics in recent years, including a surge in vehicle pursuits — drew criticism within hours.

Jake Martinez, deputy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Education Policy Center, said in a statement released this past Friday that putting the division under the authority of NYPD brass “is a dangerous move that will hurt students and make schools less safe.”

A number of current and former NYPD officials told THE CITY it’s unusual for the office of the first deputy commissioner to oversee school safety operations because the office mostly deals with administrative issues.

But an NYPD spokesperson said the first deputy commissioner already oversees a number of operational units. The department said the move was structural and that it would yield better oversight of school safety agents.

“While the role and functions of school safety agents will remain the same, this organizational change will improve the School Safety Division’s ability to serve our children and schools safely and effectively,” an NYPD spokesperson said.

As THE CITY reported last week, the shift in oversight of school safety agents comes at a sensitive time for policing matters.

The administration of President Donald Trump is employing multiple tools to boost the rate of deportations of noncitizens — including people arrested for but not convicted of crimes, as well as, in some cases, minors.

The structural shift also comes as NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and some of the city’s district attorneys have been advocating for a return to harsher penalties for teens ages 16 and 17 who commit violent crimes. 

A state law passed in 2017 known as “Raise The Age” moved many cases of 16- and 17-year-olds to family court rather than criminal court, often yielding penalties short of jail time.

The administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio had committed to moving school safety agents out of the NYPD entirely during the Black Lives Matter movement, and putting them under the authority of the Department of Education. 

But the plan was never completed before de Blasio’s term ended in late 2021 and it was abandoned by the administration of Mayor Eric Adams. 

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