West Chelsea's Asbestos House

Last month Micheal Castaldo, a producer and songwriter, discovered a bunch of guys removing asbestos from the boiler in his building at 308 W. 30th St. Besides that no one had been notified of the work, as is required by law, Castaldo could tell something was fishy. First off, he found the guys at around 1 a.m., not usually the time in-house crews like to work. They also don't like to handle asbestos without masks. And legitimate contractors' licenses aren't usually dated this month, yet signed by a Commissioner of Labor who hasn't worked for the city in years.

Castaldo and friends called the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), who promptly sent over an inspector. As soon as the DEP man walked into the basement, said Castaldo, he knew what was up. He'd met John Loa of Budget Asbestos Removal before. "Hey Johnny," called the inspector with a smile on his face, the same kind German U-boat captains must have had when they saw a British freighter loaded to the gills with munitions. Johnny Loa started pacing, muttering to himself, "This is bad. I'm not going to get paid now. This is real bad."

It was real bad. Johnny Loa had contaminated the 61-apartment building with asbestos. For three days, it turned out, he'd been polluting the basement and, worst of all, letting asbestos dust into the room that contained the elevator machinery. Every time the elevator went up and down the 11-story building, it had been sucking the toxin up its shaft in a chemical flume, dumping the stuff into the hallways.

Asbestos is dastardly. A French king used to wow visitors by throwing his asbestos tablecloth into the fireplace, where it remained intact while the stains burned off. Louis' spread wasn't dangerous, however. Visible asbestos is okay. The problem comes when its tiny fibers are airborne. On the molecular level, asbestos is a little javelin-shaped tube, perfect for lodging itself in the healthy, pink alveoli of the lungs, where it can cause mutations that lead to cancer.

While Castaldo called the cops, the inspector moved his van to block Loa's truck, which was parked outside on the street. Naturally Loa was hustling his employees to make a break for it?and did they run. As Castaldo and the inspector were waiting for the cops to arrive, Loa and his men jumped into their truck, pulled onto the curb, drove in reverse down the sidewalk, turned back onto the street through an opening in the parked cars (going the wrong way) and then sped off on 9th Ave. "It was surreal," said Castaldo.

Over the next few weeks Castaldo devoted his life to organizing the tenants against Bell Management and the building's absentee landlords, one of whom happens to be Sheldon Harnick, writer of the lyrics for Fiddler on the Roof. Harnick turns out to be the nice guy in the story. Joined by a big blue inflatable rat, courtesy of the asbestos removers' union, the tenants protested outside the landlord's upscale homes and offices. Harnick greeted them on Central Park W. and wrote a letter promising to clean up the building and fire Bell Management. Success. But when I congratulated him, Castaldo looked at me and shrugged. He'd been politicized and was now a cynic. "We'll see," he said.

The next time Castaldo and the tenants met Harnick and the other owners, a lawyer was in tow from Rosenberg and Estis, a firm that represents landlords?some would say slumlords. This meeting was covered by Kelly Crow of The New York Times, by the way, for its Sunday "City" section. Her article?"What Rhymes With Asbestos? An Urban Musical in Three Acts"?compares the tenants' situation to a lighthearted drama, complete with a car chase, which, according to Castaldo, didn't happen. The thing focuses more on Harnick's notoriety than his negligence and assumes the problem is over now that the owners have said they'll fix things up.

"It was pathetic, her saying that it was over with and they were going to do the right thing, which was basically the end of the article. How could she say that? She doesn't know," said Scott Reynolds, another tenant who's come to have the anxious look of a man who may or may not have been exposed to an invisible, toxic substance.

In the meantime, Bell Management counterattacked. They're reneging on an agreement Castaldo had with the former management firm, where he was allowed to rent two connected apartments. He's been served with an eviction notice. Half of the rest of the building will be in the same boat very soon. Like him, they're on rent strike.