401 East 78th Street, Manhattan, NY 10075

401 East 78th Street is a 5-story, 8-unit old law tenement building located in Manhattan's Upper East Side, built in 1910 and currently owned by Eric Margules. The building has experienced recurring heat and hot water issues, particularly evident from late 2023 to early 2024, with multiple emergency complaints filed through HPD for lack of heat/hot water affecting the entire building.

These issues appear to persist, as indicated by three open Housing Maintenance Code violations from November 2023, specifically impacting apartment 5B: inadequate heat supply, missing smoke detector, and missing carbon monoxide detector. The building has also faced other maintenance challenges, including a slow water leak investigation in December 2023 that resulted in no violations, and a door/window issue in September 2024 that HPD was unable to inspect. Furthermore, there are four active Department of Buildings violations from 2023 regarding failure to file external low pressure inspections for the years 2019-2022.

While the building has maintained a pest-free record in recent bedbug reports from 2022-2024, it experienced rodent activity in fall 2021, though earlier inspections from 2018-2019 showed no issues. Recent inspections in late 2023 and early 2024 have highlighted various safety and maintenance concerns, including a locked boiler room access issue noted in multiple violations. All these factors suggest ongoing infrastructure and maintenance challenges, particularly regarding heating systems, while the building's historical record shows periodic pest control efforts and varying results in rodent inspections.