Bronx building collapse: Investigation reveals earlier inspection failure at site, city says

As residents try to get their belongings back from the site of Monday's building collapse in the Bronx, New York City leaders are revealing details about an engineer's failure at the site earlier this year.

A state-licensed engineer misdiagnosed a load-bearing column as a decorative part of the structure in plans filed with the Department of Buildings in June 2023, the mayor's office announced Friday.

The city has suspended the engineer's authority to inspect exterior walls of buildings, Mayor Eric Adams and DOB Commissioner James Oddo said in a joint press release. The inspection authority was not named in the press release, but officials said the city would seek to make the suspension permanent.

"Our initial investigation into this collapse has made clear that the engineer involved has no business assessing the exterior walls of buildings in New York City, and we’re taking action to suspend his ability to do so," Adams said in a statement.

According to the city, the engineer had 368 inspection reports filed recently and the city is now auditing all of them.

NBC New York reached out to the engineer but he declined to comment.

"The engineer failed to recognize a clearly structural column as such, and he can no longer be out there making assessments of the structural integrity of exterior walls of New York’s buildings,” said Oddo. “As part of the investigation, we are reviewing all of his filings in New York City — a total of 368 Façade Inspection and Safety Program filings in the most recent cycle — and will continue that process until it is complete."

The investigation is continuing into the building collapse, which occurred in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx Monday afternoon sending a pile of debris down onto the street below. There were only minor injuries in the collapse and no one was trapped in the rubble.

Videos obtained by NBC New York showed the moment of the collapse, and just how close it came to being disastrous and deadly. A video from down the block showed multiple people walking along the sidewalk underneath the scaffolding on West Burnside Avenue in the Morris Heights neighborhood. Suddenly, parts of the building came crashing down, as did the sidewalk shed. People ran for safety as debris rained down.

The Department of Buildings is also looking into open active façade and sidewalk shed violations at the building site.

Lawmakers and community leaders called Monday for more oversight and investigation to prevent future incidents.