A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To Work (with possibly unfunny consequences)
Midtown gasped in fear at the prospect of a “suitcase bomb” this morning prompting officials to inconvenience me for three to four minutes. This intelligence was rightly culled from overheard conversations at Au Bon Pain, a slovenly gentleman yelling in his cellphone and various cross-cubicle whisperings.
Streets were blocked off, traffic re-directed, police-lined corners - we all know the drill by now.
Why is it that every time I hear about a potential bomb scare, a suitcase is always the culprit? Nary a Jansport backpack finds its way into the Johnny-Five-Is-Alive arms of a Bomb Squad robot. I never believe what anybody tells me,
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while midtown was gasping…
Building Wall Collapses in Busy Intersection on Upper West Side
by Jennifer Bayot/NYTIMES/July 14, 2005
The wall of a two-story building collapsed into a busy uptown section of Broadway this morning, trapping a handful of people waiting at a bus stop on the corner and leaving a pile of debris.
The collapse, on a Broadway block between 99th and 100th streets, happened shortly before 9:30 a.m. Five people, including a 7-month-old baby, were taken to hospitals for treatment, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said in a news conference this morning, and five firefighters were treated for injuries suffered in the rescue effort.
Residents and construction workers rushed to rescue a woman pinned at the waist. “We cleared the debris, and there was a woman screaming, ‘My baby, my baby,’ ” said Oren Adler, 34, who was across the street from the building when it fell. “We could all see the stroller.”
It took about five minutes to free her, Mr. Adler said, and then several people lifted an unbroken chunk of brick wall to free another woman, a man, and the baby, who appeared to be about 6 months old. All were alive. “The baby looked like it was blue; they rushed it straight into an ambulance,” said Jeff Rosenthal, an importer who was walking into the deli next to the building before the wall fell.
What now is a heap of stray pillars, brick and metal was a Gristedes grocery, residents said, and had a front wall of glass just like most groceries. Steven Smith, a witness who lives across the street and was interviewed on NY1 television, said the glass had shattered, allowing the wall to cave in.
Closed about three months ago, the Gristedes building was in the process of being cleared for the construction of a high-rise that residents had protested only last night in a rally. They had objected to its height, saying it would tower over the rest of the neighborhood’s buildings and compromise its “rich historical feeling,” said Cynthia Doty, Democratic district leader for the neighborhood and a steering committee member of Westsiders for Responsible Development.
On a piece of scaffolding that remained standing was a painted sign with the words “Yuppie Condos” crossed out.
The developer for the new building is Extell Development.