A “controlled demolition” is underway at the century-old lower parking garage that collapsed, shaking Lower Manhattan, as first responders painstakingly try to recover the body of the worker crushed in the debris, FDNY officials said Wednesday.
While no one is unaccounted for at the four-story Ann St. garage following Tuesday’s collapse, the remains of 59-year-old parking garage manager Willis Moore remains trapped under the rubble, officials said.
Firefighters and the department’s robotic dog, which is painted as a Dalmatian and goes by the nickname “Spot,” located Moore’s remains in the rubble Tuesday, FDNY sources said.
The weight of the vehicles left on the roof deck and the age of the building contributed to the collapse, the source said. There was no work being done in the building or any other buildings nearby and there is no indication of any kind of foul play.
Firefighters will continue to have a presence at the site to put out any potential fires as the recovery effort continues, a department official said.
All utilities to the building were shut off as preparations for the demolition were made, city officials said.
Neighbors remained rattled by the massive collapse, which was felt on the entire block.
“It shook like an earthquake,” neighbor Ben Aberle, 31, said Wednesday. “I was working from home. I thought it was a huge dump truck. A lot of shaking. Then I saw the videos. It was wild.”
Another neighbor said their building shook for at least five seconds after the collapse.
“I was a little bit nervous to sleep at night,” the resident said. “Because it can happen and it just made me worry a little bit, is our building gonna fall? All the buildings are connected.”
Block resident Jordan Schlotterbeck said that many neighbors, along with his own relatives when they visited, used the now destroyed parking garage.
“It’s sad because somebody died. Super sad. We’re lucky it’s not worse,” Schlotterbeck, 33, said. “There could’ve been more people in there.”
The collapse has made Schlotterbeck and his neighbors wonder if their buildings, which were all built around the same time, are safe from collapse.
“All the buildings down here are that height and that old,” he said. “You hope everybody’s checking what they’re supposed to be checking.”
The first phase of the demolition, currently underway, will be the removal of the vehicles that were in the garage when the top floor pancaked down on the levels below, officials said.
A massive crane has been put in place to start ripping off pieces of the top floor and bring down vehicles parked on the roof.
The upper floors packed with cars crumbled, sending vehicles into the void below, jaw-dropping photos taken from adjacent buildings show.
Seven people suffered minor injuries in the 4 p.m. collapse. A handful of the injured were garage parking attendants, officials said.
Forensic engineers will conduct a study but the collapse appears to be an accident, an FDNY source said.
The FDNY entered the building briefly Tuesday but the the garage was too unstable to remain inside, a department official said. No firefighters have been inside the building since as they shore up the rest of the structure for the demolition.
It may take days before the building is demolished and the rubble is cleared, a department official said.
Buildings Commissioner Kazimir Vilenchik said Tuesday his inspectors will “continuously review and research property profiles to understand the history of the building, certificate of occupancy, and all other records.”
City records show building owners paid fines on code violations but the Building Department did not register a fix to four open violations between 2003 and 2013. Sixteen other violations filed against the building over the last three decades were marked as “resolved,” according to city records.
In 2003, the Buildings Department cited the owners for “failure to maintain [building] hazardous” and noted “first floor ceiling slab cracks” and “missing concrete covering steel beams.” Inspectors also found “defective concrete with exposed rear cracks.”
That same year, the Buildings Department discovered the building did not have proper lighting by exits and in emergency stairwells.
In 2009, building owners were accused of having “broken and defective fire stairs” and “defective exits.” The southwest side of the building was “rotten” with “loose pieces of concrete in danger of falling,” the violation noted.
The Buildings Department cited the owners for not keeping the building up to code and for having inadequate doorways and exits in 2013.
There are two additional open violations for minor defects found during periodic elevator inspections but those defects would not jeopardize a person’s safety, a Buildings Department spokesman said.
Attempts to reach the owners of the building were unsuccessful Wednesday.