5-Story Building Collapses in Harlem

[MindMover]

Source: NBC NEWYORK

The FDNY said the building "pancaked," meaning all the floors collapsed onto each other

A five-story brownstone collapsed in Harlem Friday afternoon.

Officials said the building at 110 West 23rd Street, near Lenox Avenue, "pancaked," meaning all the floors fell onto each other.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or people trapped.


Read more: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Harlem-Building-Collapse-123rd-Street-Lenox-Avenue-150229805.html

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http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/harlem-building-construction-collapses-article-1.1072810

[steve2470]

1. so horrible, I hope no one was hurt !

I'll be interested to hear why this happened.

[KurtNYC]

3. NY1 will have it soon

http://www.ny1.com/

[Rhiannon12866]

2. Yikes! Scary stuff!

It's amazing if no one was injured or trapped. Hoping that everyone turns up safe...

[wordpix]

4. next up, the overpasses leading to/from GW Bridge

Every time I crossed the bridge, I would get stuck in traffic under these overpasses that looked like they would collapse any minute, with their rusty, cracked, and non-maintained facade. I use the past tense b/c I now avoid going through NYC and over GW Bridge, mainly due to the very sketchy infrastructure to/from.

[haele]

5. Under construction, thank goodness.

I hope there were no workers or squatters there.

Haele

[frazzled]

6. They must mean 123rd Street

23rd Street isn't in Harlem.

What an awful thing to happen.

[Cooley Hurd]

7. Looking at the building on Google Earth/Street View

...it looks like it used to be sandwiched between other buildings. I wonder if it was structurally comprimised when the other buildings were taken down?

[harmonicon]

11. The Daily News link says it was under construction.

Whatever you saw on google might have been a building that used to be there.

[RufusTFirefly]

8. Perhaps this was the building?

Found it via Google Maps. Seems to fit the description

[Cooley Hurd]

9. That's it.

[may3rd]

24. That's not a building, thats a sardine can made of brick

repost a pic in five years an the new structure,as planned, will be three times as wide
jmo

[Warpy]

10. The second link said it was under construction

I'll bet they tried to make it an open plan place to appeal to more buyers and didn't consult a structural engineer first.

[RC]

12. That makes sense. It did fall into its own foot print.

Gotta save that nickle, maximize that profit. Experts just cost money. And either tell you what you already know or tell you have to do it this way and that it will cost more than the way you want to do it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

25. Even with an SE things can get pretty dicey when making major changes to 100 year old buildings.

That's why my city, Chicago, requires a million dollar excavation insurance policy when digging around foundations. There were several cases of builders collapsing the NEIGHBOR'S building.

[Odin2005]

13. Pancaked? The 9/11 Twoofers will be all over this!

[Archae]

16. Must of been nano-thermite!

[RC]

20. Nope. Not a steel frame building.

No comparison.

[Igel]

21. Nano-termites, then. n/t

[may3rd]

22. an inside insurance job or faulty cheap materials

and incompetent workers

[CK_John]

14. I think that address should be w 123st. nt

[PoliticAverse]

15. Picture apparently taken in the basement before collapse...

( From: http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/160618/no-injuries-reported-as-five-story-building-collapses-in-harlem )

'Real estate agent Jay Harper, who showed the building to a client in January, says the basement was reinforced with braces and that a contractor had told him he was "scared of the building."'

[freshwest]

18. Good grief, why did they bother? It looks rotten, terribly unsafe. Should have been bulldozed.

At least no one got hurt. That's the good thing about this story. Thanks for the picture, it explains the story.

[NBachers]

19. It looks like decades of deferred maintenance and incompetent band-aid patches

"Just fix it so it'll work for now."

[may3rd]

23. tear it down and start fresh...oh wait

[Marrah_G]

17. omg