(The following appeared on the Stamford Advocate website on March 5.)
STAMFORD, Conn. — A vacant five-story apartment building scheduled for rehabilitation partially collapsed Tuesday, leading to the suspension of dozens of rush-hour suburban trains amid fears the vibrations could cause more bricks to fall.
“Luckily, a conductor let us know what happened and we got off the train here in Stamford,” said Janie Amoia, who was traveling to New York City with friends. “We are hopping on Amtrak for an extra $40. It is better than being stuck here.”
Amtrak runs service on the west side of NYC to Penn Station, and Metro-North runs along the east side into Grand Central Station.
Metro-North spokeswoman Suzanne Lopez said the collapse occurred near 124th Street and Park Avenue in East Harlem. As the afternoon rush hour got under way, trains were held at all stations, including Grand Central Terminal and at 125th Street, a block away from the collapsed building.
The fire department asked the Metro-North Railroad, which has about 270,000 riders each weekday between New York and its northern suburbs, to halt its trains around 3:15 p.m., railroad spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said. By around 5 p.m., announcements at Grand Central Terminal, in midtown Manhattan, indicated some train service was being restored, but there were lengthy delays.
“I don’t know what I am going to do,” said Fernando Alexandre while waiting at the Stamford train station.
Alexandre, who works at Stamford Hospital, was heading home to Pelham, N.Y., when he was made aware of the suspension.
“Hopefully, I can get on a train to New Rochelle and get home from there,” he said. “Hopefully.”
Two of the upper Manhattan building’s walls and several interior floors partially collapsed, Department of Buildings spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said. Buildings inspectors and forensic engineers were on the scene, investigating the cause of the collapse.
A spokesman for building owner Jared Kushner, of the Kushner Co., said that before the collapse the owner initially had planned to rehabilitate the building, which had been vacant for six months, and one next to it.
Then, two days ago, bricks began falling from the building, spokesman Howard Rubenstein said. Engineers for the company visited the site, deemed the buildings unsafe and contacted city buildings officials to get permission to begin demolishing them on Wednesday, Rubenstein said.
The partial collapse occurred while inspectors from the buildings and fire departments were at the site, he said.
“Jared Kushner said, ‘Thank goodness no one was hurt,”‘ Rubenstein said. “It’s quite unfortunate that this tremendous inconvenience to the people on the Metro-North service was caused by this collapse.”
Some commuters were taking the trains’ delays in stride.
“They’re reliable, and they recover pretty fast,” said Michele Ruiz while standing among the throngs at Grand Central waiting to board packed trains, which slowed down near the partially collapsed building.
The Department of Buildings visited the property six times in the past year when residents called to complain about falling debris.
Demolition of the buildings was under way Tuesday evening, Rubenstein said.
(Ben Levine and Associated Press writer Kiley Armstrong contributed to this report.)