Cement Wall Not the Final
Straw; Neighbor Pushes
Air Conditioner into Home
By Sarah Ryley
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BAY RIDGE — There was a time when the Gershons opened their shades and saw sunlight. Then the Cunninghams moved in next door, a battle ensued, and now all the Gershons see is a cinderblock wall.

It’s a homeowner’s worst nightmare, as Matt Gershon tells it, starting with a bulldozer blocking his driveway. Then, Cunningham’s two “aggressive,� unleashed dogs started defecating on his lawn; a sledge hammer broke down his foundation; stone pots were removed from his porch because they encroached on Cunningham’s air rights; and the wall was erected, two inches from his window.

Since 2002, when Cunningham moved in and the constant stream of construction started, there have been 45 complaints on his property at 123 87th St. listed with the Department of Buildings. Gershon recited them in chronological order. As he neared the end, video surveillance monitors in the background, almost as if on cue, things escalated.

On Wednesday morning, just prior to his daughter’s May Crowning ceremony for her First Communion, Robert Cunningham and his workmen began pushing Gershon’s wall air conditioning unit into his house. Gershon jumped up and pressed himself against it, screaming “Stop,� dialing the police with his free arm, again screaming, “Stop, you can’t do this!�

“My neighbor’s trying to break into my house, please send someone over right now!� he yelled into his Blackberry, while on the other end, outside, what sounded like several men pushed forward, yelling, “One, two, three push!�

The back and forth — the air conditioner would give way as several men yelled, “Push!� Gershon would then push it back in, red-faced, screaming, “Stop!� — lasted for what seemed like 10 minutes before the police arrived. The air conditioner, which was installed in the 1970s, held its place. But Gershon was clearly not going to make it to his daughter’s ceremony.

Cunningham immediately led the officers into the depths of his tarp-covered construction site, and when they officers exited, to Gershon’s surprise, he was the one reprimanded.

“This is a civil matter,� said 68th Precinct Sgt. Douglas Stephaneli angrily. “You get a lawyer and get a stop work order.�

Gershon tried to explain to the officers that Cunningham was trying to break into his home; that if the air conditioner had been pushed out, Cunningham and his men could have crawled through hole into the living room. “This isn’t a break-in,� said the officer. “You’re into his building line.�

Indeed, Gershon’s air conditioner does extend over Cunningham’s property line, and has since the 1970s. A look under the blue tarps shrouding the construction site showed a square hole in the cinderblock where the air conditioner juts out, and the construction of Cunningham’s extension wall was approaching the unit.

Cunningham’s workers, who would not give their names, said they “have no idea� what the homeowner has in store. They, including the man who identified himself as the foreman, said they’ve never seen any plans.

Cunningham left along with the officers before he could be questioned by this reporter, and didn’t answer calls by press time.

Kate Lindquist, spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings, said past audits — there have been several — have found the application to be compliant, but that “in light of the community’s concerns, we will audit the permit application again.�

The steel beams, cement block foundation — for which the DOB issued a violation Friday — and gaping hole in the ground seemed to indicate that an extension is being built to the very edge of Cunningham’s property. Gershon wouldn’t be able to extend his arm out of the west side of his house up to his elbow.

“I’m sick over it. I’m disgusted and sick over it, and I think it’s disgraceful,� said Jean Gershon, Matt’s wife. Matt added that in 1997, when they bought their house, they paid an additional $70,000 to have a detached home, which would now become a semi-detached home and worth much less.

“This guy [Gershon] wouldn’t have a prayer right now if he tried to sell his house. I can’t just say, ‘I’ve had enough’ and leave, he’s pretty much got his hands tied,� said neighbor Mike Pizzato. “It’s not even like something at the office where you’re like, ‘I can’t wait to get away to my sanctuary,’ it’s like around the clock.�

Everyone who walked by Gershon’s house stopped to shake their heads, and almost every car slowed down. “I’ve never seen anything like it in all my 30 years living here. It’s just awful,� one remarked. Another offered her condolences.

“This wall has affected the quality of life. It’s affected our air, our sunlight, how I’m going to maintain my home, and it just feels that it’s just wrong, it’s un-neighborly that it’s just been taken to this level that it doesn’t need to go to,� said Jean.

“[Matt] took the day off work to attend my daughter’s May Crowning, and he would have been there under any other circumstances had he not had to hold our air conditioner in the wall,� said Jean. “But it’s almost better that he was there when it happened, and that the kids weren’t there. Because what if [Cunningham] had pushed that air conditioner in and it fell on my 4-year-old son, who usually plays in that corner, or my 7-year-old daughter?�

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