Dozens of New York City parking garages with structural violations under investigation in wake of deadly collapse
NEW YORK -- It's been one week since the deadly parking garage collapse in Lower Manhattan, and now the city says they're investigating dozens of other parking garages with serious structural violations connected to their addresses.
The goal is to make sure there aren't more hazards out there.
Adam Cohen's car is still somewhere in what's left of the Financial District garage, where he parked monthly for 11 years.
"You ever notice any kind of structural problems? Cracks or anything like that?" CBS2's Tim McNicholas asked.
"Absolutely. For years, there had been cracks and leaks, and when it rained, the rust would drop on your car," Cohen said.
Inspectors noticed problems, too; the 100-year-old building has open property violations from 2003 and 2009 for loose or "missing and defective concrete."
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The city now says the violations remained open because they never got the proper paperwork needed to close them, but inspectors found the inside of the garage "in good condition" in 2011.
Nonetheless, the Department of Buildings says the collapse prompted them to investigate other garages. They're now focused on 61 parking garages with open Class 1 violations, which the city considers "immediately hazardous," connected to their addresses.
While the violations are for structural issues, the city says they have not gotten any reports of the buildings being "structurally unstable."
In a statement, the DOB said:
"Following last week's building collapse, we immediately moved to identify any other parking structures in the city with open DOB-issued violations related to structural issues. After identifying 61 buildings around the City that have both parking structures and also violations for structural issues, we are now looking to determine whether any of the cited structural issues are directly related to the parking structure. While we have not received any reports that these locations are structurally unstable, we are prioritizing public safety and conducting field inspections of every location out of an abundance of caution, and we will take action anywhere it is necessary to keep New Yorkers safe."
"The older the building becomes, the more regular the inspections need to become," said Dr. Sammy Tin, an engineering expert with the University of Arizona. "My reaction is that there's probably been some neglect in the past. I think that some of the buildings probably should have been on a schedule for routine inspection."
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As for those 61 other locations, the city is not saying where they are and says it's possible some of the violations are not related to a parking garage but another part of the building attached to a garage.
The Department of Buildings says they're investigating each location "out of an abundance of caution."
