Tenants at Qns. project are left cold

On Tuesday, Mayor de Blasio made a point of stating that the new taxpayer-subsidized deal to bring Amazon to Long Island City, Queens, would benefit public housing tenants a few blocks away with potential jobs.

Meanwhile, dozens of those tenants shivered and cursed at the Queensbridge Houses, where they were without heat and hot water, yet another of the endurance tests that seem to afflict biggest U.S. public housing development repeatedly.

Heat and hot water have been off and on at Queensbridge since last week, just as it was roughly a month ago when NYCHA promised to fix things. And snow is forecast for Thursday.

“It's something with the boilers,” said Queensbridge Tenant Association President April Simpson. “I didn't have heat Thursday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday . . . . I wake up at 3 a.m. and I have heat. I wake up at 6:30 in the morning and the radiators are cold.”

That was the story in midOctober when 3,000 Queensbridge tenants experienced outages and NYCHA dispatched a vendor to fix things. That scenario has been repeated over the past few days.

“This is a crisis,” said City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer. “The day before the first snow forecast of the season, several Queensbridge residents are calling my office to say they have no heat and hot water. There still doesn't seem to be a good answer as to why this keeps happening.”

NYCHA spokeswoman Jasmine Blake said some boilers went out Tuesday night and again Wednesday morning, and heat distribution valves had been closed down at four buildings. She couldn't say why the valves were closed, but said steam pressure was restored throughout the development by late Wednesday.

The mayor noted Tuesday Amazon has promised to hold a jobs fair at Queensbridge.

Van Bramer, who opposes the Amazon deal, said, “It is astounding that while the city and state prepare to spend billions on corporate welfare for Amazon, our neighbors in public housing can't even get a good night's sleep or a hot shower.”