Sewage plagues urban art gallery
A Bronx businessman says ongoing plumbing problems in his building are pushing customers out, and he accuses his landlord of doing nothing to help. Jorge Villanueva, an airbrush artist, says he traded
News 12 Staff
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Jun 3, 2016, 2:08 AM
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Updated 2,894 days ago
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A Bronx businessman says ongoing plumbing problems in his building are pushing customers out, and he accuses his landlord of doing nothing to help.
Jorge Villanueva, an airbrush artist, says he traded his brush for a mop to battle the sewer water leaking into The BB Shop, his urban art gallery off West 162nd Street.
"I clean every day because I don't want any of my customers coming in here getting sick," Villanueva says. "It's disgusting. It's like some third-world country thing."
He says the problem began last summer.
"The neighborhood knows that this is going on," he says. "Feces, you know, and they are not going to come in here."
He says all his landlord did was install a PVC pipe to allow water to drain from inside to outside the building.
"Like putting a Band-Aid, he is patching it up," Villanueva says. "The problem is still there."
Neighbors are criticizing the fact that the problem hasn't been fixed.
The building's landlord declined to speak with News 12 about the issue, closing the door on a news crew.
