Take a stroll through New York City and you’re bound to see a dog walker wrangling a pack of mixed breeds as he passes by the 24 hour corner bodega. And on his way to pick up his Sunday morning bagel with cream cheese and lox, he will most definitely pass under, and meander around, a sidewalk shed. This often unassuming overhead protection, made up of scaffolding-like support legs topped with green plywood, are sprinkled throughout the city. This structure is often the tip of the iceberg of much more elaborate protective measure unseen to the distracted bystander, and is the physical manifestation of an often long-winded negotiation culminating in the form of an Access License Agreement between neighbors.

Big City living comes with Big City problems of living on top of one another. Quite often, your neighbor may need to perform repairs to their building, whether they be emergency repairs, routine maintenance, or government mandated repair work (i.e., Local Law 11 facade safety work). But in order to perform such work, access to your property is required to either simply protect your property from the work being performed on your neighbor’s building, or your neighbor needing to perform his repair work from your property. For example, your neighbor needs to drop a swing stage scaffold within your air space in order to perform work to his building from this platform. The other common occurrence when access is needed is in the context of your neighbor’s construction and development of an entirely new building to the rear or side of your property.

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