Plumber in Meatpacking District

Built for meat, converted for everything else

The market buildings around Gansevoort and Washington Streets are short, broad and massively built, with loading bays, canopies and floors that were laid to drain. They were designed to be washed down, which means the original drainage was about floor drains and volume rather than about fixtures.

Converting that into retail, restaurants and office space means adding a plumbing system that the building has no natural route for, and it is the reason so much of the pipework here is surface-run or boxed in.

What we deal with here

• Floor and trench drains from the original use, often still live, sometimes abandoned and sealed badly. They are a recurring source of smell and of water appearing where nobody expects it
• Restaurant waste at high density, in buildings whose drains were not laid out for kitchens. See commercial plumbing
• Below-grade space under the sidewalk and the Belgian block streets, which sits below the sewer and needs pumping. See sump pumps
• Tenant churn. Retail units change regularly, each fit-out adding and abandoning pipework

Flood exposure

These blocks sit low and close to the Hudson. Below-grade space here has a real relationship with heavy rain and with tidal surge, and the equipment that protects it matters more than it would ten blocks inland. A pump that has not been tested is not protection, and the time to establish that is before a storm is forecast rather than during one.

The landmarked envelope

The district is landmarked, and the exteriors, canopies and the block paving are all part of what is protected. Anything that would be visible from the street, including vents and external pipework, is a different conversation from the same work done internally. Worth raising at the design stage.

Where we cover

Gansevoort, Little West 12th, Washington and Greenwich Streets, the blocks under and beside the High Line's southern end, and across to Hudson Street and the West Village boundary.