NYC NOW - April 19, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

We have the latest details on the Lower Manhattan building collapse, state assembly lawmakers have passed a bill would require SUNY and CUNY schools to provide access to abortion pills, and New Jersey no longer will require masks at health care facilities. Finally, yesterday’s tragic collapse of a four story building in Lower Manhattan has left city officials scrambling to uncover the cause of the incident, resulting in one fatality and five others being injured. WNYC’s Michael Hill sat down with housing reporter David Brand to discuss.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, April 19th. Here's your midday news from Lance Lucky. City crews are now working to safely take down the remains of the garage that collapsed in Lower Manhattan yesterday, killing one person and leaving four others hospitalized. Emergency management head, Zach Iskell, says the massive cleanup effort is complex. There's over 50 cars on the roof.

The building is not struck. sound. You think about hazardous materials that are in the garage, right? Gas tanks, fluids, further complicated by the fact that there are possibly some electric vehicles in that garage. Manhattan, DA, Alvin Bragg, says his office is looking into the collapse. Sunni and CUNY schools may soon be required to provide access to abortion medication on all their campuses. Lawmakers say a bill that passed the State Assembly yesterday would reduce financial and other barriers students may face when trying to access safe abortions. It comes amid uncertainty over the abortion drug Miffipristone. The Supreme Court is expected to decide on a Texas case in which abortion opponents want to roll back

FDA approval of the drug. Masses are now optional at New Jersey health care facilities like hospitals and doctors' offices. Governor Murphy defended his decision on News 12's Ask Governor Murphy Weekly Call-in Show. He says the change comes as transmission rates remain low across the state. The fact of the matter is it's where the world is headed. The United States has, as has thrown up the white flag on COVID, and we are merely in sync with the broader trends. Individual facilities can still choose to implement their own mask requirements, even without the mandate. Governor Murphy signed an executive order April 3rd, lifting vaccine and testing requirements for health care workers.

City officials are still trying to figure out why a garage in Lower Manhattan collapsed yesterday. afternoon. It killed one person and heard several others. Joining us now with the latest is WNYC's David Brand. He went to the scene yesterday. David, good morning. Morning, Michael. Is there a sense yet of what actually happened there? Well, it was a scary scene yesterday. It's a four-story building wedged onto narrow and streets next to a hotel. It's across from a Pace University building. and city officials are calling it a pancake collapse. And that means the roof collapsed onto the floor below. The wait made that floor collapse and so on right to the basement.

Six people were working there. At least one person died. City officials said that person was a worker in the building. The police commission and buildings commissioner said this was a structural collapse. And the buildings commissioner said the city's inspecting now to find out. I spoke with a few parking garage structural engineers yesterday who said that type of inspection, investigation can take about two or three weeks to complete, but it's not hard to find the reason for the collapse.

David, were there any known existing structural issues at the garage? Would you tell us anything about the rules governing inspections of garages like this downtown? Cities Buildings Commissioner said that there are active violations dating back to 2003. And if you look on the Department of Buildings website, you could see some of these that were never closed after 20 years. Some were pretty serious. visible cracking and sagging beams from 2009. The owner filed applications to correct the problems in 2010, but it's unclear if those corrections happened. There's been no major

violations since then, but it's unclear when the last inspection was. There's a new city law that requires inspections in all parking garages below Central Park, so that would include this one by the end of 2023. So there's still time to complete these inspections. Buildings Department told me they haven't received an inspection report for. for this one. David, who operates this garage and have we heard from that company? The building owner is an LLC called 57 Anst Street Realty Associates. They're connected to a Brooklyn-based carpet and linoleum installation company. Haven't heard back from them. Left some phone messages yesterday. It's operated by Little Man parking, which is a pretty big parking garage operator

in New York City. Haven't heard back from them either, and neither has said anything publicly. And I understand the FDMI used some new technology as part of their response. Yes, this was an opportunity to show off the new pretty creepy robot dog that was able to enter the building and do some investigative work. They also flew drones over and into the building to try to find out more. The parking garage is in the busy areas you described, surrounded by businesses. You spoke with people in the area yesterday. I'm curious, what did they think was going on? well it's really business as usual it was kind of a surreal scene there's a barber shop on the corner right over there on ant street uh just a few doors down and the place was packed people getting their haircut they're doing a really nice job actually they said they felt the shaking uh but it was a surreal scene because right outside there's several fire trucks uh a ton of members of the press the police officers blah

fucking the streets and people sitting inside getting their haircut pardon me david a lot of people a lot of people sitting inside getting their haircut pardon me david a lot of people people can feel really rattled and uneasy in New York when these kind of things happen. Where can people go to check their buildings standing or to file a complaint? You can look up building info on the Department of Buildings website and you can make a complaint at 311 if you suspect there's a problem with your building. If something's imminent, concrete's falling, pieces are falling. You can call 911. WNYC's David Brand. David, thank you for joining us on Morning Edition this morning. Thank you, Michael.

That was Michael Hill, and this is NYN. Now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.