Bronx building collapse investigators find contractor should have flagged engineer's mistake
NEW YORK -- New York City is taking action against the contractor who was doing construction work on a building in the Bronx that partially collapsed.
After a side of the building on West Burnside Avenue and Phelan Place in the Morris Heights section came crashing down in December 2023, the city initially blamed an engineer.
The Department of Buildings now says Arsh Landmark General Construction, the contractor, is also to blame.
"This was an avoidable, preventable tragedy," DOB Commissioner Jimmy Oddo said as the city's investigation came to a close Monday.
Contractor should have noticed mistake "right from the beginning," DOB says
DOB blamed the engineer for wrongly labeling a crucial load-bearing column as purely decorative. Minutes after workers started chipping into the bricks, the entire corner of the building fell like a Jenga tower.
"There has to be a series of mistakes that is made in order for a building to collapse," DOB Deputy Commissioner of Enforcement Yegal Shamash said.
Shamash says the contractor should have flagged the engineer's mistake "right from the beginning."
"The general contractor should've taken a look at the drawings and said, 'Hold on a second. This pier looks like it's supporting the whole building. Should I really just be taking the bricks out of this pier?'" Shamash said.
Arsh Landmark General Construction was issued two violations, amounting to up to $50,000 in fines. The contractor's registration expired after the collapse, meaning the company will have to reapply through the DOB to continue working on properties in the five boroughs.
After the collapse, the city suspended the engineer's license, preventing him from inspecting buildings for two years.
"Crappy" property owners, engineers and contractors
With over 1 million buildings in New York City and 40,000 construction sites, DOB relies on property owners to do their own inspections.
"It seems that there's some crappy property owners, who tend to find crappy engineers, who tend to find crappy contractors," Oddo said.
Miraculously, no one was hurt in the collapse, but dozens of families were suddenly homeless. The building's owners were later accused by residents of harassment and allowing horrible living conditions.
After the collapse, the New York City Council passed a law changing the DOB inspection process.
Last week, the city allocated $4.7 million to create a new task force that Oddo says will use DOB data and predictive analytics to be proactive about bad construction work instead of reactive.
"So that we can try to intercede on problematic jobs or bad actors that we've identified prior to having a side of a building collapse," he said.
We reached out to the contractor, engineer and property owner for comment, but none answered our questions.