A City Hall order to fast-track fire safety inspections at a high-end Hudson Yards office tower forced officials to cancel reviews scheduled months earlier at two schools, multiple apartment buildings and a Baruch College facility, according to internal emails obtained by Gothamist.
After all that, the building at 50 Hudson Yards failed its review anyway, additional emails show.
In response, high-ranking officials told fire inspectors to return and cancel even more appointments for people and projects that had been awaiting inspections for months.
“If they could’ve kept their original dates, we would not have to cancel 25-30 jobs,” Deputy Chief Brian Cordasco wrote to colleagues and officials on May 11, 2022.
But fire officials’ hands were tied by a directive handed down as “a top priority from City Hall,” a deputy fire chief wrote in an earlier email reported by Gothamist, one of a trove of documents revealing how initiatives meant to prioritize small businesses, schools, shelters and affordable housing morphed into a tool for catering to the city’s wealthiest, most well-connected real estate developers. The accusations first emerged earlier this year in a lawsuit filed by fire chiefs who say they were sidelined after speaking out about the VIP treatment.
Gothamist obtained the emails as the Adams administration faces scrutiny for allowing big developers and corporations to bypass the fire safety inspection backlog. A document circulated among City Hall and FDNY officials spelled out exactly who got to jump the line, and has emerged as part of a federal probe into Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign fundraising tactics.
Neither Adams nor his campaign staff have been accused of wrongdoing related to that federal investigation.
Adams and his spokespeople have repeatedly denied that a list of fast-tracked buildings exists — despite confirmation from Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh.
“Every New Yorker that comes to me is serviced,” Adams told reporters last…
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