According to reports in US media, the New York City parking garage that collapsed on Tuesday had at least four open violations requiring correction.
"Our engineers [are] deployed and currently checking adjoining buildings and observing footage from drone pictures to identify possible reason for collapse," Kazimir Vilenchik, the acting commissioner of New York City’s Department of Buildings, told reporters on Tuesday.
Vilenchik acknowledged that the building had an active violation dating to 2003, as well as several active work permits on the building, including for electrical work, but offered few other details.
"We are going to continuously review and research property profiles to understand history of the building, certificate of occupancy, and all other records and I will update this information,” he said.
According to US media reports, the department’s records show the parking garage, which first held parked cars in 1957, had 19 violations that had been completed or defaulted on, with four remaining open at the time of the collapse, including one violation for cracks in concrete dating to 2003.
The 2003 violation saw the Buildings Department cite the owners for “failure to maintain [building] hazardous” and noted “first floor ceiling slab cracks” and “missing concrete covering steel beams.” Inspectors also found “defective concrete with exposed rear cracks” in the structure.
Another citation in 2009 noted that, among other violations, the garage’s southwest wide was “rotten” with “loose pieces of concrete in danger of falling.”
However, other reports indicated that there were at least 64 violations going back to 1976, with an unknown number still being active.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Tuesday that the Buildings Department would be conducting an assessment about the nature of the violations.
"All of that will be part of our review. We didn't have any filed 311 complaints on the building. And as the acting commissioner of DOB indicated, it is always going to be part of the review exactly what happened here, if there was no open violations on the structure," Adams said.
New York Police Department Commissioner Keechant Sewell also said on Tuesday that "at this time, we have no reason to believe that this is anything other than a structural collapse. Obviously, that investigation will continue.”
Local media reported on Wednesday that the remainder of the structure would be demolished.