Currently, the Fire Department and Police are on the scene. It is unclear right now if anyone was in the building when it fell down. Body Elite, the gym that occupied all floors of the building was temporarily closed because of Covid-19 restrictions.
For years, the side wall along Union Street had bowed out dramatically. Just recently, a crew had begun work on that side wall, and it looked pretty dangerous yesterday as we walked passed it.
On June 10th, the NYC Buildings Department ISSUED a Partial Stop Work Order on the site
Today's heavy rains certainly did not help matters.
Local residents gathered across the street and seemed shocked by the sight.
More information as it is coming in.
View of the bulging wall of 348 Court Street on Union Street
photo courtesy of Mary P.
The last post on Body Elite's Facebook Page
View of the bulging wall of 348 Court Street on Union Street
photo courtesy of Mary P.
The last post on Body Elite's Facebook Page
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21 comments:
Thankfully the gym was closed at the time. When I was there just now the FDNY and NYPD were clearing people off of Union Street because of a gas smell.
😲! No wonder I heard all those sirens!
Holy guacamole.
I drove by around 3:00 pm.
Incredible.
I guess we are good a building collapse every 15 years or so?
Does anyone remember the year that the building on Carroll St (across from the park, next to the school) collapsed?
Thankfully, I hear there are no injuries.
we were there - my wife moments after the wall came down. she saw it collapse while walking down union street, halfway up the block from clinton.
the dust was still thick in the air when she arrived. she informed NYPD as they arrived on the site that she knows of at least one person by name who would always be inside the building - to specifically look for him.
we've been told that there are at least two people inside the building. not sure about their status.
as katia reports, there had been a noticeable bulge in the building for years - even more pronounced over these last few months. and then repair work began not long ago.
we saw the staff from park natural health foods standing on the corner of president and court, looking sad and shocked, which is not surprising.
hoping for the best for everyone.
I blame the Department of Buildings for its lack of oversight! They should have known and been on top of the dngerous conditions in this buidling KNOWN WELL OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME in which hundreds of people exercised weekly! But for the COVID 19 pandemic how many people could have been killed inside? I shudder to think. If DoB needs more agents in the filed so to speak then get them! A buidlign like this was an obvious catastrophe waiting to happen. It is up to the DOB to protect the public users of these structures! The public walking by this buil;ding new the bowing wall was in big trouble. So where was the DOB?
Beyond the scary part, this all makes me sad.
Yet another part of the old world slips away.
I was at Body Elite three or four times a week for six plus years.
I knew all the folks behind the front desk.
And one of the personal trainers worked with my wife.
It was a nice, low key gym.
I wonder if it will return.
Somehow, I doubt it.
Looks to be a Full Vacate order on Park Natural as a result of this.
When Met Foods closed, Park Natural became an important source for essentials for our household.
Our family will definitely at a loss if they can't reopen quickly.
Oh, no! I was afraid of that
This is very sad but what really sticks out is ...they required fire and police..the exact people they are trying to get rid of
A few years ago Body Elite put a door through the thick brick wall between it and the Park Natural building on the 2nd floor — seemingly with no permit. So not surprising that the Park Natural building may have some issues too.
Wow, great reporting, Katia. Thank goodness no one was hurt. I hope they can rebuild Body Elite. Was such a great neighborhood gym. I was working out there the morning JFK Jr. we learned JFK Jr. and his beautiful wife Carolyn were lost. I will never forget that moment.
Yes, they had to close Park Natural next door, since there is still an unsupported and probably unstable 3-story wall leaning against that building. So at least until that wall is safely brought down, I don't think the'll allow Park Natural to reopen.
To Unknown @ 11:43am. Please do some due diligence and understand what "defund the police" actually means.
First: This slogan does not include Fire and EMT—both of whom are unarmed, and have been victims of police brutality and overreach themselves— who would benefit from such a policy; resources would be re-allocated from the police to services such as those two, as well as potentially to DoB inspectors to head off situations like the one that has just happened.
Second, money could be re-apportioned to healthcare services to help with potential PTSD of employees in adjacent buildings, care of physical injuries and recovery services, not to mention local monitoring of air quality and follow-ups with community in the neighborhood to ensure that the expulsion of so much debris and dust does not have unseen long term effects of the surrounding residents.
Having said all of that, the police seemed to be doing their proper job on the scene yesterday; most people in favor of this policy are "not trying to get rid of" the police, just back off the disproportionate allocation of funds to the militarization of the NYPD, and their uses and tools of force, rather than their abilities around helping the communities they serve.
I was an member of the gym when I lived in the neighborhood. The staff was always wonderful and the management was always trying to improve the place. I always felt like something was amiss on the ground floor..... the beams on the ceiling seemed to connect to a central beam that ran from the front to the back of the space. There were holes where presumably there had been columns. The basement level had a series of columns holding up the first floor but there were no columns on the ground floor or the second floor. I am not an engineer but it always made me uneasy looking at what appeared to be an unsupported span. The dropping of weights on the second level floor in a large impact load too.
As a frequent shopper at Park, I learned that the owner also owns the Keyfood on Henry St. DoB records show that The Body Elite building lists the owner as Union & Court Realty Corp and its CEO is Ki Hyo Park. They own another building at 486 Henry, which is the Keyfood.
Thank you, Annonymous @ 1:12 PM for informing those among us who don't know what defunding actually means. This topic seems to inexplicably anger and outrage those who are disinclined to learn what it actually means.
Yes, it's the Park family that owns the building, both for Park Natural and for Body Elite... and yes, they also own Key Foods - there is some transit between employees between the two stores... and I've often wondered if inventory moves between the two as well.
I've been shopping at Park Natural for years. I hope they'll be able to re-open soon but I fear that the whole building will have to come down. If so, I wonder what they'll do, while I worry about their employees. I saw many of them shortly after the building came down, standing outside on the sidewalk on Court Street and President. Understandably, they were upset. Now, they probably have to worry about their jobs. Many of us have come to rely on them so I hope those of us who are regular customers will continue to support them.
I have mostly shopped exclusively at Park Natural since the start of the pandemic. I knew were everything was and could get in and out very quickly. I, too, hope that they will be able to re-open soon.
Am I mistaken or did the Park family also own the Met Food on Smith Street, which sold for a few million dollars a few years ago?
This is an astounding sign of DOB incompetence. I actually can’t imagine a discussion beyond the obvious aforementioned concern over the beam formation and the overt bulge on the exterior of the building. I am not an architect but I am a child of two architects it is so extremely obvious from reading the story that both the building owner and the Department of buildings have been negligent for years! I am astounded by this level of gross incompetence in my city. Above all, thank God no one was hurt! It seems that Covid is teaching us a lot of lessons long overdue.
I agree. I went through the many DoB violations for this building online. Going back to 2005, DoB was issuing them for bulge in outside wall and asked for an engineer report ASAP. What happened in these past 15 years? Nothing!!!
Does anybody know if (when?) Park Natural may be opening up again?
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