Part of Vacant NYC Building Collapses, Wounding 3
The weather conditions must have been just right this morning for us to be able to pick up NY on our live scanner feed.
NEW YORK – Part of a vacant five-story building that had recently been cited collapsed in lower Manhattan on Thursday morning, leaving mounds of rubble and slightly injuring three people, officials said.
Emergency crews with a dog searched the site and a neighboring building as a precaution, and three people — two firefighters and one civilian — were treated at a hospital for minor injuries, fire officials said. Their conditions weren't available...Continue Reading
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Gas was shut off in the area.
Lewis Largent, who lives across the street, was looking out the window at 6:15 a.m. when "the bricks started trickling off the top corner. I was thinking was it raining or something. Then within 10 seconds it just all came down like a wave or an avalanche."
Building inspectors were at the scene, about seven blocks north of the World Trade Center site. The cause was not immediately determined.
It appeared the front half of the building at 71 Reade St. was sheared off in the collapse, and interior floors were visible from the street. Mounds of bricks lay on the ground, and pieces of wood hung from what remained of the structure. A car on the street was covered in rubble.
Some work was being done to shore up the building, which is next door to a construction site, said Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri. Inspectors had been there this week.
Violations had been issued Wednesday for loose bricks and cracks throughout the building's north and west side, according to city records.
The city had cited it Tuesday for being vacant, open and unguarded after a caller complained the building was abandoned. On April 10, the city issued a citation for unrepaired cracks on the parapet and window sills.
The collapse occurred before the normally busy flow of pedestrians and traffic.
The building, which was constructed in the late 1890s, is in the neighborhood that is part of an official historic district in the Tribeca section of Manhattan. Demolition was under way Thursday afternoon, said buildings spokesman Tony Sclafani.
A neighborhood businessman said he was worried about a homeless man who often slept outside the building.
Kody Tokar, who owns an elevator company across the street, arrived about 45 minutes after the collapse.
He said the homeless man was "always sleeping there," under scaffolding in front of the building.
Tokar said he saw bricks dropping off the building on Wednesday and also noticed some cracks.
He and others who work in the neighborhood had joked in the past that they didn't want to park there.
"The building looked like it was going to fall for a while," Tokar said.
Associated Press writer Amy Westfeldt contributed to this report.
