I received the following from John Lucido, Building Inspector. The Building Department is working day and evenings on this.

PAUL FEINER

Last night the Building Department and Police Department joined forces and performed a planned operation uncovering a 2-family home at 114 Manhattan Avenue that was illegally modified into a 5-family multiple dwelling.  A tip came to the Building Department from a tenant complaining about horrible living conditions.  AssistantBuildingInspector Steve Fraietta, Code Enforcement Officer Vic Ciraco, Detective Jim Basulto and other police officers gained entrance to the dwelling with a search warrant approved by Judge Doris Friedman. The Building Department is issuing 36 summonses for a variety of violations including:

Building without permits; Electrical Code violations; conversion to a non-permitted use (2-family to multiple dwelling); unsafe conditions and plumbing violations.

These violations are the most serious of the 36 because of potential life-safety consequences.  Some of the bedrooms where children slept had no emergency egress, which has proved through experience to produce devastating results.  Given the success of this operation and the excellent police assistance, we can expect many more operations of this type.