For residents displaced by deadly New York City parking garage collapse, their new reality is settling in
NEW YORK - The cleanup continues following Tuesday's deadly parking garage collapse in Lower Manahttan.
As the cause of the collapse at 57 Ann St. remains under investigation, we're learning more about the moments after it happened.
Adam Cohen kept his car in the garage and lives in a neighboring building. He raced down to the scene when his wife heard – and felt – the earth shake beneath her.
"Smoke in the air. And I come outside to start walking around to see what's going on because this is my neighborhood and I live here and it's my garage and it's my apartment that I can't get into," Cohen said.
Cohen said he recognized a garage employee named Edwin at the scene and brought him into the lobby of a nearby apartment building before he had received medical attention.
"Shell-shocked, I guess, is the best way to put it. And I grabbed him, brought him into the lobby of my friend's building, sat him down. My friend went and got him water," Cohen said.
It wasn't until Thursday, Cohen said, that it set in: His car is gone, and he can't access his home. He and his family have been displaced and are staying at a nearby hotel, with an unknown return date.
"They don't know how this is gonna go and what the damage could be," Cohen said.
Cohen said there were chargers for electric vehicles in the garage, something the Department of Buildings says they have no record of. Cohen also said the garage had plans of installing chargers on the second floor, if they hadn't already.
The weight of these electric vehicles – much heavier than gas engine cars – is part of the investigation into the incident by city officials and Mayor Eric Adams.
"We have to constantly analyze and upgrade everything from a weight capacity to how many cars can be there," Adams said.
The man killed in the collapse has been identified as Willis Moore. Moore was the manager, and a familiar and friendly face to regulars.
"Willis was one of the great guys. He had the smile. He lit up the room. He had a good joke for you whenever you saw him," Cohen said.
"When I heard this happened, I started calling him. I know they said, I don't know, six was injured and one had passed," Tonya Davis, who works in the Financial District, said. "Twenty-seven years. Twenty-seven years, never think in a million years that it would be someone I knew."
Enterprise Ann Parking – the garage company at 57 Ann St. - tells CBS2 in a statement that they are fully cooperating with city agencies and other authorities as they investigate this incident.
