Before a teardown starts, the buildings around it need a dated record of how they looked. That record is a pre-demolition survey: high-resolution photographs of every adjoining structure, captured while the building is still standing and archived for as long as the claim window stays open.
Demolition is the loudest thing that happens on a block. Machines break masonry, floors drop, trucks idle at the curb for weeks, and every building sharing a wall or a lot line with the site feels all of it.
A pre-demolition survey is the photographic baseline taken before any of that begins. We walk the adjoining properties with the owner's permission and shoot the exterior elevations, the party walls, the roof surfaces, and every accessible interior room, calling out the cracks, the settlement, the patched plaster, and the prior repairs already there. Each frame carries its capture time and location in the file. Months later, when someone points at a crack and says the demolition put it there, the answer is a photograph with a date on it.
Excavation moves soil under a building. Demolition removes a building that other buildings have been leaning on, sometimes for a century. The risk radiates outward from the lot line in three bands, and the survey scope follows them.
On a rowhouse block the wall between two buildings is often one wall, shared. Take one side down and the other side meets weather, temperature swings, and its own unsupported edge for the first time in its life. The survey documents that wall from both faces while both faces still exist: the flashing, the pointing, the old flues, and the plaster on the neighbor's side of it.
Mechanical demolition sends vibration through the ground and into neighboring slabs, and it throws dust and fragments further than most owners expect. Buildings across a shared alley, storefronts under a sidewalk shed, and the stoops and areaways at street level all sit inside that radius. Each one gets photographed before the first bucket swings.
TPPN 10/88, a DOB technical policy, extends documentation and monitoring to designated landmark buildings within 90 feet of certain excavation and foundation work. In Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, or much of lower Manhattan, that circle catches something more often than it misses, and finding it late in preconstruction planning is an expensive surprise.
Every adjoining property in scope gets the same four passes in the same order, so the record reads the same way whether an adjuster opens it next month or an attorney opens it in three years.
We start where the public can see, because that's where a claim usually starts too. Brickwork, lintels, cornice, window frames, the stoop, the areaway, and the sidewalk flags in front of it. Spalled mortar at the base of a wall and a hairline in a concrete step are exactly the conditions someone will point at later, so each one gets a close-up with a location note beside the wider context frame.
The shared boundary is the highest-risk surface on the job, so it gets the longest pass. Where two buildings meet we record the parapet, the flashing at the roof line, exposed sheathing, the coping, and the mortar joints along the full height of the wall. Where an alley separates the buildings instead, the alley pavement and the lower wall come with it.
Roofs carry the equipment an owner notices fastest and the surfaces that leak first. Condensers, their steel supports, conduit runs, disconnects, vents, drains, and the membrane around all of it get photographed in place. If a unit shifts on its beam or a seam opens while the teardown is running, the before frame is already sitting in the file.
Settlement shows on plaster and trim long before it shows on brick, which makes interiors the half that decides most disputes. With the neighbor's permission we work through every accessible room: walls, ceilings, floors, stair runs, window and door reveals, kitchens, baths, and the mechanical spaces below. Finished rooms get the same coverage as unfinished ones, because that's where a claim gets expensive.
The question we field most on a demolition job is about responsibility: who orders the record, who runs the monitoring, and where a photography firm sits in that chain.
| Party | Orders the survey | Runs the monitoring plan | Produces the photographic record | Seals and files with the DOB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Owner or developer | Usually | Commissions it | Receives it | Through the design team |
| General contractor | Often, by contract | Coordinates access | Receives it | Through the filing representative |
| Engineer of record | Sets the scope | Designs and runs it | Reviews it in the file | Yes |
| OpenDoors360 | No | No | Yes | No |
| Adjoining owner | No | No | Grants access | No |
One boundary, stated plainly: we produce the photographic record. We're not a licensed engineering firm, we don't seal or file reports, and nothing we deliver replaces the engineer of record's work. What we hand over is built to sit inside that engineer's file, and general contractors bring us in exactly that way.
The same line applies to the code question. Whether your scope triggers a documentation requirement is a call for your design team and your filing representative, and we won't pretend otherwise. Send us the scope and we'll document the adjoining properties either way, because a record taken before the machines arrive is the part that protects you.
If you're unsure which of those your job hits, send the scope. The regulatory side is walked through in plain English in our guide to NYC pre construction survey requirements, and the parent service page covers the wider range of pre construction surveys we shoot across the five boroughs.
Skipping the record doesn't make the claim go away; it moves the argument from a photograph to a memory, and memory loses. A neighbor who has lived with a crack for eleven years will remember it appearing the week your excavator showed up, and with no dated frame of that wall there's nothing to set against the story.
A dated photographic record of the buildings next to a demolition site, captured before any of the work starts. It documents the exterior elevations, party walls, roof surfaces, and accessible interiors of each adjoining property, calls out the cracks and settlement already there, and archives every frame with its capture time and location.
The code threshold most demolition jobs meet sits in the excavation that follows the teardown. NYC Building Code Section 3309.4.3 holds a dig 5 to 10 feet deep within 10 feet of an adjacent building, or over 10 feet deep anywhere on the site, until the existing conditions of adjoining buildings are documented. Section 3309.4.4 adds monitoring while the work runs, and TPPN 10/88 extends documentation to designated landmark buildings within 90 feet of certain excavation and foundation work. Whether a specific scope triggers those rules is a call for your design team and filing representative.
The party causing the work, which in practice means the owner, the developer, or the general contractor by contract. On projects with a monitoring plan the engineer of record usually sets the coverage, and the owner's insurer often drives the scope, since the carrier is the one who would field a damage claim.
Each adjoining property in scope, inside and out: street elevation, stoop and sidewalk, party wall and lot line, roof, parapet and rooftop equipment, and every accessible interior room where the neighbor grants access. Existing defects get their own close-ups with location notes beside the wider context frames, and each image carries its capture time and location in the file.
The deliverable is the same photographic record. What differs is the timing and the risk profile: documentation ahead of new construction is usually driven by excavation and underpinning, while a teardown adds vibration, airborne debris, and a party wall that ends up exposed to weather for the first time in its life.
The claim still arrives, and the argument moves from a photograph to a memory. A crack a neighbor has lived with for years gets dated to the week your machines showed up, and with no frame of that wall from before the work there's little to set against it. Insurers and counsel both treat a missing baseline as the weak point in a defense.
Longer than the job itself. We archive the report and the full-resolution image set through the project and keep it on file past closeout, because damage claims surface after the fence comes down, sometimes after the property has changed hands.
It gives you the evidence to answer one. A defect photographed before the demolition started predates the demolition, and the capture data carried in each file is what makes that verifiable. We produce the photographic record; we're not a licensed engineering firm and we don't seal or file reports.
On a demolition job the exposure doesn't end when the building comes down. Revisits while the work runs catch movement early, when it's still small enough to talk about calmly, and a closeout pass once the site is clear finishes the file.
For longer jobs we come back on a schedule the project team sets and re-shoot the same positions, which is the same discipline behind our construction progress photography. When the teardown gives way to new building, the closeout record is a post construction survey of the same adjoining properties, shot to match the baseline frame for frame. The structure of the deliverable itself is walked page by page in our pre construction survey sample report breakdown.
Send the site address, the demolition scope, and the number of adjoining properties, and we'll come back with a quote. If interior access to a neighbor's building is the open question, say so early, because coordinating those visits is usually what sets the schedule.
Site address, demolition scope, and how many adjoining properties sit in the affected zone. We return a quote, usually within two business hours.
Related: pre construction surveys · post construction survey · contact a real estate photographer
