Some violations can only exist if a child lives there. A lead-based paint hazard order, for example, can only be written for an apartment where a child under six lives. A window guard order, where a child ten or younger does — or where the tenant asked for guards in writing. No child on the record, no request on file, no violation, whatever the paint is doing and whatever the window is missing.
Each one is an apartment where an inspector went in, found a hazard, found a child, and wrote it down. 27,025 of them are open today across 5,973 buildings.
How we counted. We pulled every open class C violation — the city's immediately hazardous tier — whose order text names a lead-based paint hazard or a missing or defective window guard, then grouped buildings by their portfolio. We rank by total count, not per unit. The heaviest address under each portfolio is the opposite: open orders per apartment, minimum two, so size doesn't win.
What the citywide number is made of
22,946 are lead paint. 4,079 are window guards, which cost about eighty dollars installed.
The lead orders come in two kinds. 21,480 are hazard orders — paint that tested positive, or is presumed positive, in an apartment with a child under six. The other 1,470 are failure-to-notify orders: the owner never sent the annual notice or never investigated. Paperwork, but paperwork that only exists because a child is on the record.
The backlog is old. Median time open: 565 days. 10,875 have been open more than two years, which means a child who was five when the inspector came through is seven or eight now and the paint is still there. The oldest open order in the set dates to August 2022.
7,333 were written this year and remain open. The pile is being fed.
Why these two, of everything the city tracks
Lead first. New York banned lead paint in 1960, but the hazard is still in the walls of pre-1960 buildings. It chalks into dust at toddler height and causes permanent brain damage. Local Law 1 of 2004 presumed paint in older buildings is lead and made a child's presence the trigger. Every lead order is that law working; every open one is it being ignored.
Window guards came the same way: after enough children fell from open windows that the pattern couldn't be called accidental. The city passed the first window-guard rule in the country in 1976 — guards required where a child ten or younger lives. The law already existed when Eric Clapton's four-year-old son fell from a 53rd-floor East Side apartment in 1991. It worked: child window falls dropped from hundreds a year to a handful. But the handful still happens. This April a five-year-old climbed out a third-floor window in Morrisania, the Bronx, and fell from the fire escape. He survived. The city widened the rule to first-floor and terrace windows in 2011.
A&E Real Estate Holdings
- lead paint hazards
- 594 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 21 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 197 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 812 Totalopen child-safety orders
Across 110 buildings, and a wider gap to second place than any other rung on this list. A&E also holds more open window guard orders than the next four portfolios combined. Douglas Eisenberg is the name in the filings.
Heaviest address: 530 West 123rd Street, 15 open orders across 11 apartments.
Summit Properties USA
- lead paint hazards
- 494 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 14 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 58 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 566 Totalopen child-safety orders
53 buildings, and almost all of it is paint. Median item has been open about 292 days.
Heaviest address: 1362 Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, 33 open orders across 48 apartments.
David Tennenbaum
- lead paint hazards
- 261 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 11 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 26 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 298 Totalopen child-safety orders
45 buildings. The median order here has been open 913 days — well over two years, and the slowest of the top five.
Heaviest address: 268 Union Avenue in Brooklyn, 13 open orders in a seven-apartment building.
Pistilli Realty Group
- lead paint hazards
- 268 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 5 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 17 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 290 Totalopen child-safety orders
Concentrated: 21 buildings carry the whole load, which works out to about fourteen open orders per building.
Heaviest address: 2710 Valentine Avenue in the Bronx, 32 open orders across 37 apartments.
Anthony Gazivoda
- lead paint hazards
- 224 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 17 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 21 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 262 Totalopen child-safety orders
36 buildings out of a 39-building portfolio have at least one. That is close to complete coverage.
Heaviest address: 985 Anderson Avenue in the Bronx, 36 open orders across 50 apartments.
Bronstein Properties
- lead paint hazards
- 167 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 20 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 23 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 210 Totalopen child-safety orders
48 buildings. The median order has been open 704 days — just under two years.
Heaviest address: 561 West 170th Street, 32 open orders across 45 apartments.
Residential Management (NY) Inc
- lead paint hazards
- 136 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 21 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 28 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 185 Totalopen child-safety orders
45 buildings. Labe Twerski is the registered name.
Heaviest address: 102 West 183rd Street in the Bronx, 14 open orders across 43 apartments.
Rick Gropper
- lead paint hazards
- 160 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 4 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 16 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 180 Totalopen child-safety orders
23 buildings. The same portfolio files under the Camber Property Group name in places.
Heaviest address: 672 Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, 30 open orders across 34 apartments.
Cafiero
- lead paint hazards
- 149 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 4 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 23 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 176 Totalopen child-safety orders
28 buildings. The median order has been open 786 days — more than two years.
Heaviest address: 1738 East 4th Street in Brooklyn, eight open orders in a six-apartment building.
Scott Silverman
- lead paint hazards
- 139 lead paint hazards
- failure-to-notify
- 17 failure-to-notify
- window guards
- 16 window guards
- open child-safety orders
- 172 Totalopen child-safety orders
41 buildings. The median order has been open 716 days — nearly two years.
Heaviest address: 349 East 19th Street in Brooklyn, 11 open orders across 37 apartments.
The window guard number is the one to sit with
A lead abatement is real work. You need a certified contractor, containment, clearance testing. It is expensive, and expensive things get put off.
A window guard is a bracket and four screws. The city sets the standard, hardware stores sell the approved ones, and the whole job is under a hundred dollars and takes twenty minutes. There are 4,079 of those orders open right now. Some have been open since 2022.
What this doesn't tell you
It doesn't tell you a child was hurt. An open order records a missed deadline, and most of these hazards do get corrected eventually.
And it doesn't capture the apartments with no child on the record. Same paint, same windows, no violation.
If your building is in one of these portfolios, the individual orders are public and name the apartment line. Search the address and read them.
