By Elana Seifert
“They’d been taking out a boiler, demolishing it, and I’d been in and out all day,” he says. “It didn’t really hit me what was going on.” When he finally looked into the Dumpster, he saw what he thought was “obviously old insulation. Because of the age of the building and the age of the boiler, I had my suspicions about what kind.” Swank called the Mayor’s Office of Inquiry and Information to report what he suspected. “I mentioned to them to send someone over first thing in the morning because the garbage would be picked up.” He then phoned his friend Mark Siska, a filmmaker who videotaped the Dumpster and its contents. Swank says he also took samples of the material.
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When an inspector from the city’s Department of the Environment showed up the next morning, most of the Dumpster’s contents had already been removed. Gaines says he was present when the inspector arrived. “He stood there in the basement, pushed open the door to where the boilers were–but it was chained, so he could only rattle it–and said, ‘There’s no fucking asbestos down here,’ and left.” A few hours later Realty and Mortgage served Swank with a five-day eviction notice. “They didn’t waste any time,” Swank says.
Then where did the material come from that Stat Analysis said contained 15 to 20 percent asbestos?
Nevertheless, Swank says he’s always had a good relationship with Berger. He admits to falling behind on his rent occasionally during his six years in the building, but, he says, he has always made good on his debts.
Swank and the Kish brothers say they have no recollection of that happening in 1993. “Wouldn’t we have noticed if guys in space suits came around at some point?” asks Erik Kish, who has leased space in the basement for 12 years. Other long-term tenants back him up. “I never saw anyone wearing protective garb or equipment anywhere in the building,” says Diane Cole, a former third-floor tenant who first came to the Flat Iron in 1988. She recently moved out of her studio after a dispute with Zimmers. Like the basement tenants, she says management has been pressuring the older occupants to pay more or move since last year. “It was like Zimmers had been ignoring the property all along and suddenly realized he had a gold mine on his hands. People who’d been left alone before were getting harassed.”
What will come of Swank’s allegations about the asbestos is anyone’s guess. He took his complaint to the Illinois attorney general’s office, which forwarded it to the state EPA’s Maywood regional office. Officials there say they defer to the city of Chicago on smaller complaints. And the city clearly believes the building is safe.
