A 20-story chimney running along the side of a NYCHA building in The Bronx collapsed Wednesday morning, and the FDNY is investigating whether an explosion in the boiler room on the first day of heat season triggered the collapse.
The partial collapse at the Mitchel Houses in Mott Haven ripped open the corner of 205 Alexander Ave., but did not appear to have affected adjacent apartments and miraculously resulted in no injuries.
Tenants in the F and G lines on both sides of the chimney were evacuated while the Department of Buildings looked at whether the collapse had compromised the structural integrity of the building.
Residents and eyewitnesses described the harrowing moments before the collapse, which left a gaping hole slicing through the corner of the building from the top floor all the way to the ground.
Jahmeik Garris, who lives on the building’s 18th floor, was still asleep when his girlfriend woke him up with her screams. From her window, she could see bricks falling, he said, after what sounded like two consecutive explosions.
He grabbed his 1-year-old daughter and ran downstairs and out the building: “I just locked in to survival mode.”
Moments before Mayor Eric Adams and other city officials gathered for a press conference, debris continued to fall from the building.
FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker said the chimney leads to the basement boiler room and that a preliminary examination indicates there may have been an explosion in the boiler room that triggered the collapse. FDNY officials said earlier they were also looking into the possibility of a gas leak.
Wednesday was the first day of the city’s official heat season, when owners of residential buildings often turn on their boilers for the first time. NYCHA Chief Operating Officer Eva Trimble noted all boilers are examined before the beginning of heat season but that she wouldn’t comment on when that specific boiler had last been inspected.
A fire on the building’s 12th floor last Wednesday had resulted in one injury, according to the FDNY, but was not connected to Wednesday’s explosion.
Jimmy Oddo, the city buildings commissioner, said “work was being done” on the boiler but did not provide details. He said there were three open violations on boilers but he emphasized they were for non-safety reasons and cautioned that DOB does not know if those violations had anything to do with the morning’s calamity.
DOB records show that on June 25 inspectors had ordered all plumbing work at the site cease due to the work being performed under an expired license.
Ada, who did not share her last name, had just dropped off her kids at school at P.S. 154 across the street when she saw the smoke coming from what looked like the building’s boiler on the roof. Moments later, she saw what looked like a massive crack forming from the corner of the building’s top floor before it peeled off and collapsed on the ground below.
“We just started running,” said Ada, who does not live in the Mitchel Houses. “We just started screaming, next thing you know there’s the fire department, police, EMT, they’re all coming in.”
Magda López, another Mitchel Houses resident who lives in the building across the street from the collapse, said she smelled smoke before a neighbor knocked on the door and alerted her of a fire emanating from the roof of 205 Alexander Ave. Then she heard what she said sounded like a bomb.
“The windows shook,” López, 60, said in Spanish. “There needs to be some accountability. Housing, NYCHA is too negligent. They are very negligent.”
Like most of NYCHA’s portfolio, Mitchel Houses is decades old. Opened in 1966, it’s in desperate need of upgrades. According to NYCHA’s most recent examination of all its developments known as the “physical needs assessment,” Mitchel needs more than $635 million in repairs over the next five years and more than $717 million over the next 20 years.
That includes $84,793,743 to upgrade all of Mitchel’s steam piping.
Gas Odor
Several residents told THE CITY that they could smell gas for weeks before Wednesday’s explosion.
State and local officials who represent the area called for a full investigation to determine what led to the explosion and collapse.
Assemblymember Amanda Septimo, who represents the area, said she was “alarmed” that residents’ reports of gas leaks apparently went unanswered.
“It’s nothing short of a miracle that no one died,” she told THE CITY. “We need to get to the bottom of what went wrong.”
U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres traveled from Washington D.C. to New York and was en route to the Mitchel Houses at noon Wednesday. Whether the federal government shutdown that began on Wednesday will affect repair efforts is still being determined, he said.
An FDNY source told THE CITY that the agency’s federal appropriations for emergency response, including urban building collapses, are fully funded and not impacted by the government shutdown.
Torres said he has been in touch with the partners in the federal government, including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, in order to determine next steps.
“Even though Donald Trump and the Republicans have shut down the government, the shutdown is no excuse for inaction. A building collapse is an emergency. Public housing is ultimately federal housing, it is federally funded and federally regulated and therefore a federal obligation,” said Torres.
“So as far as I’m concerned, the federal government and HUD in particular have an obligation to assist the city in restoring the building and relocating the tenants to new permanent housing,” he added.
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