So, just before we get started with this

week's video, I'm really happy to

announce that I have these root cause

analysis cards up for sale on my Band

Camp, as well as a new cassette tape of

some of my new music up for sale. I

really hope you check it out. And

without any further ado, let's get on to

this week's video. Repair works are a

vital part of building maintenance. Be

it the odd bit of rewiring, plumbing,

updating, reflooring, or pointing, etc.

This is much more prevalent in older

buildings. As like everything in the

world, age takes its toll. And to stay

fresh for the future, you need to keep

on maintaining your usefulness in order

to save off the bulldozers. The

importance of knowing the area you're

going to work on is also very important

because a small job can turn into an

absolute nightmare when you open up an

unexpected rat's nest or some bodgege

previous fix. This kind of is the case

back in 2023 when a very old building

was undergoing some repair works where

the workers assumed one thing that ended

up with this as the aftermath. Today

we're looking at the 2023 New York City

parking garage collapse. My name is John

and welcome to Play Difficult. This

video wouldn't have been possible if it

wasn't for my YouTube Patreon and Kofi

members. If you want early access to the

channel's videos, then you can from just

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links are in the pin comment below.

Also, whilst you're there, check out

some of my other bits like the music I

make and random bits and pieces I sell

on reverb. Again, the links will be down

below

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background. So, this car park video is

different to the ones more recently.

on my channel of unexpected self

deconstruction in that the structure was

not fairly new. Instead it was the best

part of a century old when it decided it

didn't like being a car park anymore.

Thus our story begins in the year 23.

Not 2023

but 1923. This is an street Manhattan

New York. And in 1923, a building

standing on this plot of land around

number 57 is just a year away from being

condemned. In early 1925, a demolition

permit and alteration certificate was

issued. This would pave the way for the

building in our video. A certification

of occupancy would be issued in January

1926, stating a garage for more than

five autos. The building used cinder

concrete slabs reinforced with welded

wire fabric. These were supported on

concrete encased steel beams and girders

which were also supported on internal

concrete encased steel columns and

perimeter unreinforced loadbearing walls

and peers. Some of the brick perimeter

walls were constructed with the garage

in 1925. However, some others were

reused from older buildings that had

been on the site's pre-new build. And

just so you know, the foundations for

the building were spread footings. Over

the years, the building would receive

various modifications to increase its

car loading capacity. In 1957, the roof

was modified to add more parking with a

stipulation for passenger type vehicles

only. Being a parking garage in a

massively congested city like New York,

it would not be much of a surprise that

it saw a lot of use over the years.

Hundreds of tons of vehicles each day

would show on the building structure

with noticeable cracks, reinforcement

rusting, loose brick work, and

deteriorating concrete being a not

uncommon sight for motorists as their

family cars were parked. In 2003, and 6

years later, the city department of

buildings issued to the car park's owner

violations regarding poor maintenance

and illegal modifications. It was found

the building had experienced structural

damage during these notices. It was not

new, however, as over its operating

life, it had racked up multiple concerns

with staircases being cracked, spooling

concrete, and exposed steel beams. But

even though falling apart, a car park

had quite a few regular customers. One

such was New York City Sheriff's Office,

who regularly park some vehicles on

site. In 2010, repair works was

submitted to the Department of Buildings

and the work to add new supporting beams

was undertaken. 11 years later, a new

rule came into effect in New York City.

This would require parking structures to

have regular department of building

inspections. The building's owners used

the consultants on retainer Experian

design group to undertake a survey of

the car park in May 2022 in preparation

for the city rules for submitting a

report by the 31st of December 2023.

The 3D survey used by EDG found some

issues which would require fixing. Most

notably cracking on pier E3 directly

beneath a thirdf flooror gerder. The

company came back 4 weeks later for a

second 3D scan. During this, they

identified Pier E3 again as needing work

and identified it as a masonry column

encasement instead of what it actually

was, which was a solid brick loadbearing

pier. The difference would change the

way any repair work would be undertaken.

As it was just an enc casement, the load

of the floor above it would have been

taken by a steel column which the bricks

were encasing. On top of that, EDG did

not identify the cracking brick works

condition as unsafe.

Instead, the pier was a solid brick

arrangement. I know I'm repeating myself

here a bit, but the difference is that

if you remove the bricks from the solid

brick pier, then you are removing the

thing holding the weight above you. On

the 21st of March and 22nd of March

2023, EDG workers tasked with doing

another survey to assist in drawing up

repair plans discovered further damage

to Pier E3, and that was that some

cracked bricks had been removed prior to

their visit. In April, the garage repair

drawings were issued. There it was set

out that the brick work would have to be

removed and rebuilt. No instructions for

shoring up the floor and roof materials

being held up by the pier had been set

out. Which leads us onto the disaster

and repair works are set to deal with

the cracking brick work at Pier E3.

The disaster. It is the 18th of April

2023 and car park employees begin

removing damaged brick and mortar from

the upper section of pier E3 on level

two. As each brick that was being

chiseled out and removed, it began

loading up more stress on the pier's

remaining brick work.

This work did not have the required

permit from the city, but I suppose the

managers of the car park didn't think

it'd be too much of a problem due to

still thinking it was an enc casement

rather than the actual thing holding the

floor up. The removal of the damaged

brick showed no steel support behind.

Photographs were taken and sent to EDG.

This was at around 10 3 in the

afternoon. EDG project manager Vivec Sha

instructed the workers to replace the

bricks which is all good and all

although no warning of urgency or danger

of the building was communicated to the

workers. Also, the lack of information

about the danger meant no attempt at

shoring was made on site. The workers

did not place any new bricks on the

pier, but they were very quickly running

out of time. Meanwhile, at 4 minutes

4:00 p.m., a car park member of staff in

a vehicle on the roof backed into a

drive aisle and drove past pier E3 and

into the vehicle lift. At around the

same time, the garage partially

collapsed on the northeastern and

southeastern quadrants of the building.

The second floor crashed into the first,

bringing down the structure above it.

Cars plunged into the wreckage as the

building let out a deafening crash,

interrupting the hustle and bustle of

the New York landscape. Soon enough,

multiple 911 calls came flooding in and

the first responders arrived on scene.

The adjoining buildings were evacuated

and in total, the collapse would end up

causing quite a widespread error of

effect. Subway services nearby had to be

operated at lower speeds. Nearby Pace

University classes were cancelled and

multiple areas had to be shut off due to

structural fears for the remaining parts

of the building, including its

streetside facade.

The building operated on a valley

parking service which limited the

numbers of people inside at the time of

the collapse. However, seven workers

were injured requiring minor medical

treatment. The collapse would take one

victim though, garage manager,

59year-old Willis Moore. His body would

be pulled from the wreckage the day

after the collapse. It was estimated

that 40 cars were in the building at the

time of the disaster, which would

require removal by crane and an

estimated insurance cost for the

vehicles alone, coming to $1.5 million.

Demolition of the structure would begin

on the 20th of April, but not before

investigators would descend upon the

site for evidence gathering. This took

place using LAR scans and 360°

photography to build up a state of the

car park post collapse. Interestingly,

the investigating would be jobbed out to

a third party company instead of by the

city itself.

The company was L Consulting Structural

Engineers, which leads us onto our next

section of the video,

the investigation. So fairly soon after

the April 2023 collapse, LER was held on

retainer. They began by looking over the

photographs taken during initial first

responders work and started digging into

the building's history. As demolition

began, drones and cameras were employed

to gather evidence of the structure as

parts were removed. Important sections

were marked as evidence for fire

inspection and laboratory testing later

on. This in conjunction with witness

testimony and reviewing the surveys

undertaken by EDC gave investigators a

pretty good sense of the cause of the

collapse. Clearly the start of the

disaster was at Pier E3

as that was the epicenter of the

self-granded part of the building. This

was the exact location that the masonry

was being ripped out for replacement

works. It was discovered that Pier E3

was actually a repurposed chimney from a

previous party wall and it was not well

built for the task it was meant to do.

As stated by Le, the pier was not well

integrated to the party wall, leaving it

poorly braced against buckling, unable

to effectively distribute concentrated

loads from the floor girders into the

surrounding wall and more highly

stressed than a pier that is well

integrated to the surrounding wall. The

building was very troubled throughout

its life with a total of reported 64

building code violations between 1976

and 2023 alone. It was deteriorating at

such a rate that multiple areas were at

a fraction of the strength that they

were meant to be, such as rusted away

steel work and severely cracked brick

peers. But what was the collapse

sequence? Well, the repair works on

column E3 severely weakened the support

for the third floor girder. At around

the same time, it was at its weakest,

i.e. with many bricks removed, a vehicle

was driven on the roof above Pier 3.

Around the same time, this was just

about the right amount of extra weight

to set off the collapse. It crushed the

remaining bricks and mortar in pier E3.

This made the third floor girder to drop

a few inches, in turn, creating a void

on the pier at the third floor. The void

left only supports on the party wall to

hold up the upper story of pier E3. Soon

enough, this connection at the party

wall failed, thus bringing down the roof

girder into the third floor and down and

down and so on. Pier E3 was likely not

even built to codes of its day next to

the party wall and not built into it,

which when added to the neglect that the

building went through meant that it was

a ticking time bomb as noted by LER in

their report. During its 98-y year

lifespan, Pier E3 suffered long-term

progressive deterioration, likely caused

by a combination of natural aging and

long-term exposure to moisture and

potentially aggravated by the elevated

stresses due to the above described

design and construction deficiencies.

And this deterioration resulted in

severe cracking in the pier. The straw

that broke the camel's back was though

the improper survey that incorrectly

identified the pier as having steel

inside. Again for the LER report,

EDG failed to require shoring and

probing to verify the apparent

assumption that Pier E3 consisted of

nonstructural brick encasement of a

structural steel column. The collapse

was a real eye openener for the state of

many buildings in New York City. In the

aftermath, 61 parking garages would be

deemed to be immediately hazardous.

Understandably, the collapse would

generate multiple lawsuits against the

building's owners, which are still

underway, although I reckon they will be

successful as the LER report was

released only in April 2025,

which was rather damning as we've seen

during this video. So, that's my video

on the An Street car park collapse. It's

going to be three on my scale, and this

is what I've got for my root cause

analysis card. Do you agree? Let me know

in the comments below.

This is a pl production. All videos on

the channel creative comation shell like

licensed pl videos produced by me John

in the currently quite warm corner of

southern London UK. And all I have to

say is thank you very much for watching

and Mr. Music. Can you play out please?

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[Applause]

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