STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Upon entering the 180 Park Hill Ave. apartment building, part of the Park Hill Apartments complex, you’re immediately greeted by a yellow bucket placed to catch drips from a gaping hole in the ceiling.
“When it leaks here, there’s a leak in my house... in my kitchen,” said a first-floor resident, who asked to remain anonymous. “I probably have mushrooms growing on the wall. I have two kids with me, and that’s probably why they’re always sick.”
Once you’ve entered the building lobby, look to your left or right, and you’ll see mailboxes missing their doors.
Ahead, a laundry room is propped open with a trash can. Inside, you’ll find a rusted sink, four working dryers out of five, and just four functional washing machines out of seven. The walls are chipped and peeling, contributing to a state of despair.
With the building standing six stories high, it is insufficient to accommodate all the residents, according to tenant Tanequa McCoy.
“How are we supposed to live like this? This is inhumane for us to live like this,” McCoy said.
She added that if maintenance is on-site from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, the building should at the very least be kept clean.
“The laundry room... everyone complains about it. It’s first come first served,” McCoy explained. “You have to come down here and everyone is standing in line. Half the time this door is locked though, so they decide when they want to open the laundromat. Sometimes you come down here with your cart thinking you going to do laundry and the door is locked.”
On days when there are leaks, the lobby floods. A wet floor sign stands at the far end of the hallway from the lobby — proof, McCoy explained, that the water reaches all the way down.
“This whole thing is flooded. You’ve got to be careful walking through because you can slip and bust your head open. Anything can happen to you,” she added.
It’s been in this condition for over a year, McCoy shared, and she’s frustrated that nothing has been done, especially when it comes to maintaining the building’s public spaces.
This building is part of The Park Hill Apartments, a government-subsidized complex on Staten Island, consisting of several multi-story buildings, the others at 140, 185, 225, 240 and 280 Park Hill Ave.
For years, tenants have felt neglected and unheard. According to past reports from the Advance/SILive.com, residents of the government-subsidized building have faced poor living conditions, including rodent and roach infestations, hazardous mold, broken elevators, faulty utilities, and a lack of heat during cold winters, among other issues.
In 2019, frustration among Park Hill Apartments tenants boiled over, prompting dozens to rally and voice concerns to management and local officials about overflowing trash, delayed repairs and vermin infestations.
“It’s been how many years?” McCoy said. “This needs renovation. We need help. And no matter what we do and who we reach out to, people don’t help us. It is horrible living here.”
DelShah Capital spokesperson Juda S. Engelmayer said they are implementing a comprehensive plan to rehabilitate the entire campus.
“While we recognize there are existing issues, our approach is to address them holistically rather than through piecemeal fixes,” Engelmayer said. “For emergencies and urgent matters, we are responding promptly and making necessary repairs. For everything else, we are committed to a full renovation that will ensure lasting, efficient, and meaningful improvements for everyone who lives on the property.”
Conditions inside the apartments: “It is wrong”
With the public spaces neglected and in disrepair at 180 Park Hill Ave., McCoy says it’s no surprise that the apartments themselves are in equally poor condition.
There are 93 open violations so far in 2025 in 180 Park Hill Ave., according to the NYC Housing Preservation & Development online portal.
Some tenants passing by the reporter onsite voiced that they had mold in their apartments, while others spoke of rodent infestations.
“Some of us, we can’t afford to just up and leave. But why are we forced to live in these conditions when we’re paying rent,” McCoy said. “It is wrong. People have health conditions. The elevators break down for months and some people are unable to walk six flights. There’s mold in people’s apartments.”
McCoy herself has been living with epilepsy since she was 14 years old, she shared. She experiences various types of seizures, but has been seizure-free for about three years.
A few weeks ago, a panel of sheetrock from her bathroom ceiling fell on McCoy’s head, an incident she fears could trigger her seizures again.
“Since the sheet rock fell on my head, now I‘m getting these bad migraines and these bad headaches. That’s usually how my seizures start... I get the aura before it happens,” she said. “I scheduled an appointment with my neurologist just to have an EEG done and be on the safe side.”
The issues with McCoy’s bathroom ceiling began in April 2024, when she noticed a leak and documented it with photos. She filed a report to have it repaired, but by June of that year, the situation had worsened, and no one had come to fix it.
Nearly a year later, on March 7, 2025, the leak intensified, pouring water from the ceiling. Despite calling multiple times, she said she still received no response.
“They only came when I went down there. I had to go to the office yelling and screaming, acting like a mad person and it’s not nice to get like that... you know, I don’t want to get like that to people,” she said. “That’s when they decided to come.”
She said a maintenance worker eventually came, broke open a hole in the ceiling above her shower, and placed a [panel of sheetrock] over it. He told her he needed to go upstairs to trace the source of the leak.
“He never came back. Fast forward to April, it’s leaking through the sheetrock now, and they still don’t come back. Last week, it falls on me while I am in the shower,” she said.
After returning from the hospital, McCoy said she reported everything to management, who assured her that someone would be sent to address the issue. Despite that promise made, no one showed up until five days later.
On Sunday, April 27, workers took down the sheetrock and plastered the damaged bathroom ceiling. They returned two days later, on Tuesday, to finish the job by painting over the repairs.
“Why did it have to get to this point?” she said. “For a year, they weren’t concerned.”