Everyone in the NYC building industry has their personal horror story of dealing with the Department of Buildings.
My favorite: I was looking for some information and I was sent to seven different offices, eventually ending up at the first office I visited. It was like a sick joke.
One time I was looking for a property folder. Records Department said Certificate of Occupancy Department had it. Certificate of Occupancy Department said Records Department had it. I must have gone back and forth between the two departments ten times begging for some sanity. They eventually told me my engineer must have lied about dropping it off. Finally somebody found the folder abandoned in a corner. WTF??
My most recent frustrating encounter with them was when I wanted to retrieve a building folder from the off-site storage area. You need to make the request via Email. Simple enough, except nobody knew the email…
I called one number I got of the web site that also doesn’t list the email), no answer, but it did offer a list of seven other numbers I could call. None of the other numbers answered. But they did offer the number of all the other numbers. So I found myself calling in circles.
A couple times I got somebody on the line they transferred me to voice-mail. I left a message (I called back three times and left three actually). A week has gone by with no call back.
After hours of calling around, I had amassed twelve numbers that theoretically should help me….
Finally I find yet another number and somebody responds who has the email.
So here it is, if you need to request a folder from the Brooklyn Department of Buildings you need to email BROOKLYN-OFFSITE@BUILDINGS.NYC.GOV