The lower Manhattan garage that collapsed Tuesday afternoon, killing one worker and injuring five others, has a checkered history of building code violations, including for “loose” and “defective” concrete, according to city property records.
Structural defects were known at the century-old garage at 57 Ann St. going back twenty years, when the Long Island-based owner was hit with an $800 fine in 2003 for “hazardous” failure to maintain the building. City inspectors wrote of cracks and other deterioration in the concrete on the building’s first floor, citing “missing concrete covering steel beams” and “defective concrete with exposed rear cracks.”
The city also fined the landlord $350 following the 2003 inspection for defective lighting in the exit stairwell.
The landlord, 57 Ann St Realty Associates — registered to Alan Henick of Long Island — paid the fines but evidently didn’t learn the lesson. In 2009, the Buildings Department once again hit 57 Ann with code violations, this time citing “broken,” “defective,” and “rotten” fire stairs that “opened with [a] loose piece of concrete in danger of falling [at] various locations.” The owner paid a $200 fine.
The 2003 lighting issue and 2009 concrete violations, as well as a $1,200 violation for locked emergency exits in 2013, remained open when the roof of the garage caved in and collapsed on Tuesday, killing one worker and injuring five others. The name of the deceased worker has not been released.
On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams said that rescue operations continue as they look to retrieve the deceased individual, whose remains are still trapped in the highly unstable structure. Crews were checking the cars that were being removed from the garage for human remains on Wednesday afternoon.
Fire Department spokesperson Clare Bourke said that the building will be brought down in a controlled demolition, though when that is planned to occur is unclear. A connected garage at 25 Beekman Street is also under a full vacate order and is in danger of collapsing, according to property records.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has launched an investigation into the collapse, Gothamist reported. Attempts to reach Henick by phone were unsuccessful.
The structure was built in 1925, and was issued certificates of occupancy as a garage in 1926 and 1957. In each instance, the edifice was approved to operate as a garage for “more than five” automobiles per floor, and capacity for ten persons per floor.
Considerably more than five cars were present on the roof at the time of the collapse, images show. Automobiles today are also much heavier than older models, with bulky SUVs and pickup trucks now the dominant style of vehicle in America. Electric vehicles are even heavier, as the batteries add hundreds of pounds of weight to the load.
Mayor Adams did not foreclose the possibility that “immediate” changes might be needed at all of the city’s parking garages to prevent a similar tragedy.
“We look at every circumstance and say, let’s learn from it. And so that’s what Department of Buildings and other, our structural engineers, they’re going to have to look at this and say what do we learn from this,” said Hizzoner. “And if there needs to be immediate actions with existing garages, then we have to take that immediate action.”
Census data shows that the number of cars in the five boroughs and surrounding suburban counties increased over the past decade, even as officials seek to limit the number of people driving on Manhattan’s congested roads, Streetsblog reported.
The State Legislature in 2019 approved a congestion pricing plan that would charge motorists entering Manhattan’s central business district below 60th Street, intent on limiting car traffic and raising money for transit improvements, but it has been mired for years in bureaucratic delay and still needs a sign-off from the feds.
The mayor also denied that considerable vacancies in positions at the Department of Buildings, about 22.7% last October according to City Comptroller Brad Lander, had starved the agency of capacity to do inspections; Hizzoner denied the high vacancy rates and said it was the building owner’s job to hire engineers to do inspections themselves.
The Ann Street garage’s decrepitude was no secret in the downtown community, even among people who parked their cars there.
“It’s a mess,” FiDi local Chad Scott told amNewYork Metro. “The building’s been in disarray for years. It’s really bad. Not surprised at all.”
“I was just shocked but not kind of shocked, really just due to the fact that this building seems very outdated,” said Nicole Pinel, who lives across the street. “It needs help, it is weathered, and I’m surprised that it hasn’t had an issue prior.”
Dean Moses and Cate Corcoran contributed reporting to this story
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