The Bronx
Attached and semi-attached brick walk-ups on narrow streets, where a party wall is shared with the neighbour and kerb space for a container has to be arranged rather than assumed.
Where Breakara works
Breakara Demolition serves all five New York City boroughs. Where a job sits does not decide whether it gets done. It decides how it gets done.
Why where the job sits changes the job
A demolition job is set by access long before it is set by the work. How a truck reaches the building, what it can park on, whether material goes down a staircase or a freight elevator, and what the building itself allows on a weekday morning. Those decide the method, the number of days and the price.
None of them is visible from an address alone, and none of them is the same across the city. A third-floor co-op in a prewar elevator building and a detached garage with a driveway are different jobs before anybody has said what is coming out of either.
That is what the first conversation is for. Say where it is and what has to go, and the answer accounts for the access rather than pricing it as risk.
What that changes on the first call
The walk-through starts from the building, not from a form. What the street allows, what the freight elevator allows, what the managing agent allows, and whether the work needs a filing before it can begin.
A job that needs a permit needs one in any borough. How long that realistically takes, and which buildings add their own layer on top of the city's rules, is what you are told on the first call rather than after a deposit.
What each borough actually asks of a job
Five boroughs, and the same scope prices differently across them for reasons that have nothing to do with the scope.
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Shared walls
Across much of the Bronx and parts of Queens, a building shares a party wall with the one beside it. That wall governs the sequence, the support and the protection, and it is the first thing looked at rather than the last.
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Freight elevators and stairs
In a prewar elevator building the freight elevator, and the hours the building lets you use it, set the number of days before anybody picks up a tool. In a walk-up the stair does the same job more slowly.
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Where a truck can stand
A Staten Island driveway a truck can back down and a Manhattan side street with two hours of kerb space are different logistics for identical material.
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Whose rules apply
The city's rules are the same everywhere. A co-op board's alteration agreement, a managing agent's insurance requirements and a commercial landlord's working hours are not, and they are usually the tighter constraint.
If the job crosses boroughs
A job that starts in one borough and finishes in another does not become two jobs or two prices, and a client with property in more than one borough gets one conversation, one scope and one price.
You do not need to work out which borough a job belongs to before calling. Say the address and it is sorted from there.
The five boroughs
What the building stock runs to in each, because knowing that before the walk-through is what turns an estimate into a price. Call the number on this page for a job in any of them.
Queens
Prewar elevator buildings and two-family houses, where most of what comes out leaves through a service door, on hours the building sets rather than the job.
Manhattan
Prewar blocks where the freight elevator and the building hours set the schedule, and where kerb space in front of the door is the scarcest thing on the job.
Brooklyn
Brownstone and brick row houses with high stoops, where the carry route runs down a full flight before it reaches the pavement and the front of the building is the only way in.
Staten Island
Detached frame houses with their own driveways, which is the one part of the city where a machine and a container can usually get close to the work.
The borough sites, and what each one works through
Each borough has its own site, written against what that borough's buildings ask of a job rather than against a template. If you already know where the job sits, start there.
The Bronx. Party walls govern most of the borough's blocks, so the sequence and the protection are settled before the scope is. The Bronx site covers interior demolition, building demolition, concrete removal and debris removal, and it works through what decides the cost in detail.
Brooklyn. Walk-ups and detached property in the same borough, so the route material takes out is settled building by building. The Brooklyn site covers interior demolition, building demolition, concrete removal and debris removal, and it sets out what moves the number.
Manhattan. Kerb space and the freight elevator set the number of days here more than the scope does. The Manhattan site covers interior demolition, building demolition, concrete removal and debris removal.
Queens. Shared walls in parts of the borough, detached property in others, which is why the walk-through decides the method. See interior demolition, building demolition and concrete removal.
Staten Island. More driveways a truck can back down, which changes what a machine can reach. The Staten Island site covers building demolition, interior demolition, concrete removal and debris removal, and answers what a house demolition costs.
How the method follows the access
The method follows the access, and the access is what the building decides.
Where a machine can reach the work, we use one. A breaker on a compact excavator is faster, quieter across the whole job and easier on the surrounding surfaces than days of handheld work, and on a driveway or an open lot that is usually the right call.
Where a machine cannot reach, we work with handheld breakers and saws and size the material to the route out: through a door, down a stair, into a hoist, or out through a window opening. That is the normal case in a walk-up and in most prewar elevator buildings.
We decide which it is at the walk-through, before we price it, because that single decision moves both the number of days and the cost more than anything else on the job.
Questions about coverage
Do you work outside the five boroughs?
The five boroughs are what Breakara covers. If your job sits just outside one of them, say where it is on the call and you will get a straight answer rather than a maybe.
Is the price different by borough?
The price is different by job, and where the job sits changes the job. We do not price a detached garage with a driveway a truck can back down from the same starting point as a third-floor apartment in a prewar co-op. The second one prices around a freight elevator and a set of building rules.
Do you do all four services everywhere?
Yes. Interior demolition, building demolition, concrete removal and debris removal, in all five boroughs.
What if my job is on a boundary?
It does not matter. There is nothing for you to resolve before calling, and no boundary on our side for a job to fall between.
Tell us what is coming out, and where it is.
You will get a straight answer on the first call, including whether it needs a filing before it can start.