The building collapse injury attorneys at Denena & Points note that on Thursday morning just before 8 a.m. at Broadway and West 130th Street, a 1915 warehouse structure that was being taken down to make way for new construction suddenly collapsed on top of workers at the site. Three workers were rescued from the rubble.
Two of the workers were partially buried in the debris. One of these workers has since died from his injuries. Another worker was completely buried by the building’s rubble in the northwest corner of the site. Rescuers had to tunnel through the building’s wreckage to reach the trapped workers. One of the surviving workers is listed in serious condition, while the other worker is classified as critical after the fatal building collapse in Manhattan.
Our building collapse injury attorneys point out that the 1915 two-story warehouse was being demolished as part of an expansion of Columbia University. The main campus of Columbia resides in West Harlem near Broadway and 125th Street. The new Manhattanville campus, for which this warehouse was undergoing demolition, has been plagued by problems from the start. The problems include: community protests, eminent domain lawsuits, and city code violations at the site.
The New York City Department of Buildings had already issued citations earlier this month to the site. Other citations were issued the very day of the building collapse. The safety violations included:
Reportedly, demolition workers were taking down the warehouse one floor at a time. A structural beam was cut, and moments later, the entire structure suddenly collapsed on the unprepared workers.
The fatal Manhattan building collapse has led the Manhattan Borough President to issue calls for a full investigation of the disaster by the Department of Buildings (DOB). DOB officials say human error is a possibility.
The closely packed structures of Manhattan make ordinary demolition activity using controlled explosives unusually dangerous. So some building demolitions require structures to be taken down the old-fashioned way, by careful disassembly of bricks, mortar, and beams.
Our building collapse injury attorneys note that cutting of structural members, even in a careful demolition process, is an activity always fraught with danger. And in older buildings, where connecting beams and other structural members might already be in weakened or compromised condition, the activity becomes even more dangerous.
Learn more about the dangers of building collapses. Read our building collapse injury attorneys’ article on weak structural connections as a cause of deadly building collapses.