This morning, some pieces came off a building at 170 Smith Street causing some issues with subway service and attracting a large contingent of firefighters. We took these photos of the building around 5:45PM on Tuesday and, fortunately, an emergency scaffold was put up around the building yesterday so that whatever did fall came down on the scaffold rather than pedestrians. The FDNY and Building Inspectors remain on the scene. Both Curbed and Brownstoner have photos of the activity this morning. Note the woman with stroller beneath the crumbling facade on Tuesday evening, below.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Mar 20, 2008 at 9:54 am
Is it an other Scarano construction?
2 Anonymous // Mar 20, 2008 at 11:34 am
It appears the foundation of the building was negatively impacted by the construction of the adjacent MTA substation.
3 Anonymous // Mar 20, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Crane aftershocks.
4 tagray1 // Mar 20, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Today at 160-170 Smith Street the building owner was doing work inside
the building without a permit. An MTA staff member recognized a
problem with the structure and called DOB. The site was shut down; DOB
and FDNY were on site.
Follow up info:
Per MTA:
Subway service was traveling at slow speed through Bergen Street this
morning when the incident happened, but now is operating normal. No
evidence of any structural problems.
Per DOB:
It was a facade separation, no danger to the surrounding properties of
subway system. The developer has done the necessary work to make the
site safe. They will not be permitted to continue until the matter is
resolved and all proper permits are approved.
If anyone has any further questions please call or email me directly.
Thanks,
Tom Gray
District Director
City Council Member Bill de Blasio
(718) 854-9791
(718) 854-1146 Fax