Chinatown neighbors take city to court over late-night work at new jail site

A group of Chinatown residents and advocacy organizations went to court this week to stop after-hours construction on the city’s new jail in their neighborhood. They say the longer workdays are costing them sleep and raising health worries tied to dust.

Crews broke ground at the site in 2024. For most of the time since, demolition and building stayed within the standard daytime hours the city permits for construction, which end at 6 in the evening and begin at 7 in the morning. Early October brought a change. New permits now let weekday shifts start at 6 a.m. and run until midnight, add a Saturday shift of 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and allow trucks to arrive with deliveries as early as 4 a.m., up until the regular day begins. The suit says officials intend to keep renewing those permits through 2032, the jail’s scheduled completion date.

What the Chinatown jail construction lawsuit claims

The plaintiffs argue the city broke local administrative law and the state’s environmental review law. When the project was first reviewed, the analysis assumed crews would work mostly regular weekday hours over about four years, with nights and weekends only now and then. On that basis, it concluded neighbors would not face a significant noise problem.

According to the filing, the city never studied whether near round-the-clock work, or pushing back the finish date, would bring new or different harm. The suit asks the court to allow after-hours work only when it is occasional and temporary, saying years of extended shifts would put “an excessive burden on the surrounding community.”

Plaintiff Jon Alpert lives nearby and runs DCTV, a nonprofit media arts center. The suit says DCTV already moved its audio recording sessions to evenings to escape daytime noise, and late-night construction would make those sessions impossible.

Why the city wants longer hours on the Rikers replacement

Planned as the tallest jail in the world, the building is one of four borough-based facilities meant to replace Rikers Island. The city’s official project page says the new Manhattan jail will have 1,040 beds for men. NYC Borough-Based Jails project page A 2021 local law calls for Rikers to close in 2027, but city officials have said construction delays put that date out of reach, the suit says.

According to the filing, officials have warned that without the extra hours the Chinatown jail would open two years late, in 2034, at an added cost of $340 million. The mayor’s office said it will answer the allegations in court rather than respond to them now.