Two of your neighbors took the City to court
Friends,
There are 2,272 of us on this petition now. Here is where things stand, and why the next few months matter more than the last few.
Two of your neighbors have taken the City to court. On July 3, Roosevelt Island residents Rachel Dowling and Tibor Krisko filed a case in New York State Supreme Court challenging the City's decision to demolish the steam plant. They were told by attorneys that they had a strong case, but none could take it without a retainer they could not afford. So they researched the rules themselves, using AI to help organize a public record scattered across five agencies, and filed on the last day the law allowed — at 11:55 p.m.
The court date is Wednesday, September 23. One thing to be clear about: filing this case did not pause anything. There is no court order stopping the work, and there won't be one before that date. The case asks a judge to review how this decision was made — not to halt the site in the meantime.
The City has named a timeline. In a New York Times article published August 11, a spokeswoman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development said the agency expects the stop-work orders at the steam plant to be lifted and demolition to resume "before the end of the year."
That is the clearest statement anyone from the City has made about when this restarts. Since February, work at 5 East Main Street has been halted three separate times, by three different agencies — the State Department of Environmental Conservation, the City Department of Environmental Protection, and the Department of Buildings. Those orders are the only thing that has slowed this project down. The City has now said it expects them gone.
What the case argues. The petition challenges a Department of Buildings work permit issued March 3, 2026 — a permit the City classified as an "alteration," even though it authorizes the complete demolition of both masonry smokestacks. It rests on two claims.
Violation of lawful procedure. The City advanced this demolition without the environmental and land use reviews the law requires. Under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR) and the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), agencies cannot "segment" a major demolition from the residential redevelopment it enables and review neither. There is an open petroleum spill case at the site (DEC Spill #2508914), and still no community air monitoring plan.
Arbitrary and capricious. The decision to demolish lacks a rational basis on the record. An independent structural engineer who reviewed the building's original drawings found the 1939 steel-frame structure physically salvageable. An industrial chimney contractor found both stacks repairable for roughly $700,000 — against a City permit to demolish those same two stacks valued at roughly $750,000. In 2023. And the City's own published Q&A confirms that the July 2024 emergency order was to seal and secure the building — a job that is finished — while the order to demolish is a separate, non-emergency order.
What The Times reported. The article looked at how two residents without lawyers, priced out of representation, built and filed a case against the City using AI research tools — and how carefully they checked their work to avoid the errors. You can read the full piece here .
What we are still asking the City for, and have been since December 2, 2025:
Pause long enough for an independent review. There is no emergency; there is time.
Release the structural assessment residents have been requesting for eight months.
Commission an independent study of repair and reuse, with residents at the table.
Monitor air and soil at the perimeter — where people live — not only inside the work area, and test for lead, heavy metals and PCBs, not asbestos alone.
Bring in an engineer and contractor who specialize in tall-chimney work before any further work on the stacks.
Three things you can do today:
Share this. Send the Times article and this petition to one neighbor who hasn't signed.
Chip in. The costs of this case fall on two residents and a volunteer effort. Contributions are at $3,457: gofundme.com/f/stop-the-steamplant-demolition
Stay reachable. HPD has committed in writing to give the community five business days' notice before demolition begins. Five days is not much time to organize. Make sure the email address you signed with is one you actually check — when that notice comes, it will be the moment to contact elected officials and show up.
This building has stood for 87 years. The City says it has no use for it. We do.
— ArchRI (Architectural Community Alliance of Roosevelt Island) archrica.org