Mayor Bill de Blasio, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and U.S. Reps. Nydia Velazquez and Jerrold Nadler were among the hundreds on hand outside the federal Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), 80 29th Street in Sunset Park over the weekend to protest that over 1,600 inmates were without heat or hot water for over a week because of an electrical fire.
Meanwhile, on Sunday alone, 6,938 New York City Housing Authority residents were without either heat or hot water or both.
According to media reports, the outages at MDC stemmed from electrical problems and originated in an electrical panel that blew out last month. Although the panel was initially repaired, it caught fire on Sunday, Jan. 27, leaving the facility and inmates without electricity, heat or hot water through the cold snap last week.
This led to massive protests outside the facility over the weekend.
De Blasio said federal officials have “massively failed” the inmates at MDC.
“New York City is sending trucks with hundreds of blankets and hand warmers to the (MDC) NOW and generators are being readied for transport,” de Blasio tweeted. “We’ve told the Federal Bureau of Prisons the supplies are coming – whether they like it or not.”
De Blasio later tweeted pictures from a loading dock at the facility, saying that generators were also delivered for the prisoners.
“We won’t stand by while the federal Bureau of Prisons fails them,” de Blasio told reporters.
Electricity, heat and hot water was reportedly restored at the prison last Sunday, Feb. 3.
Meanwhile, NYCHA officials reported 11 of their developments were without either heat or hot water or both as of 11:59 a.m. yesterday. This included seven in the Bronx, one in Manhattan, one in Queens and two in Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn NYCHA Developments without heat included the Sutter Avenue-Union Street development, Building 02 at 2045 Union Street and the Ralph Avenue Rehab – Building 05, at 698 Ralph Avenue. Both developments are in Brownsville.
KCP also received reports that the Red Hook Houses and several developments in Coney Island also were without heat during last week’s cold wave. NYCHA did not confirm or deny this.
There were no reported protests or reports of de Blasio sending generators, blankets or hand warmers to any of these NYCHA developments.
