7-Story Residential Building Partly Collapses in the Bronx

Firefighters were tunneling through a huge pile of debris as they searched for possible victims after part of a seven-story building in the Bronx suddenly collapsed on Monday afternoon.

Fire Department officials said there was no immediate confirmation of injuries. “We don’t know if anybody is trapped under there. Hopefully not,” John J. Hodgens, the chief of department, said at a news conference on Monday night near the 46-unit building in the Morris Heights section.

Chief Hodgens said that officials did not yet know what had caused the partial collapse. “We’re searching for life,” he said. “That’s our main objective at this time.”

As of Monday night, no victims had been found, and fire officials said no one had come forward to report anyone missing.

Photographs and videos showed rooms at the corner of the building at 1915 Billingsley Terrace exposed, almost as if the walls had been ripped off. Evidence of the lives disrupted by the partial collapse peeked out of the tangle of metal and wood.

On the street, walls and bricks lay in a jumble below the apartments that were now exposed to the cold afternoon air.

Norma Arias, who lives on the first floor and has been a resident of the building since 2009, said she had just returned from the bodega, where she had gone to buy cilantro, when she heard a loud boom.

A neighbor ran down the hallway screaming: “Everybody get out. The building is coming down,” said Ms. Arias, 69.

Ms. Arias said she grabbed her passport and her identification card and ran outside.

“I almost died in that collapse,” she said.

Maridelsa Fana, 50, a school bus driver who lives on the third floor, was waiting at a light when the building came down. She said she was looking for a place to park her empty bus when she looked in the rearview mirror and saw the debris falling and heard what sounded like a huge explosion.

She slammed on the gas, terrified the building would collapse on the bus, then threw herself out through the passenger side door.

“I’m still shaking,” Ms. Fana said. “I thought I was going to die.”

The residents have been evacuated to a nearby school as the firefighters’ search continues.

The Fire Department said that it had arrived in under two minutes and cautioned that its investigation of the collapse was in preliminary stages. Laura Kavanagh, the fire commissioner, said a canine unit had been brought to help search for anyone who might be trapped. A drone had also been deployed to help in the search.

Emergency workers will remain “until we either find someone or we confirm that there is no one under that rubble,” Commissioner Kavanagh said.

There have been questions about the building’s safety for years, according to city building records. The ground floor has several stores, including a market at the corner of West Burnside Avenue and Phelan Place.

Ms. Fana, the third-floor resident, said people had been complaining about the building’s state of disrepair for years.

“People said this place is going to fall apart piece by piece,” Ms. Fana said. “But no one imagined this.”

She believes her apartment was undamaged but said she did not want to go back inside.

“No one is going to want to stay there now,” she said. “No one is going to want to sleep there.”

Flor Jimimian, who owns J&G Multiservices, a tax preparation office on the ground floor, said that the collapse happened just moments after a major water leak inside the first-floor market. She said that within 20 seconds of her stepping outside the store to inspect the leak, the side of the building caved right in front of her.

“I’m very lucky, now that I’m thinking about it,” Ms. Jimimian said.

Just last month, the Department of Buildings issued a $2,400 fine to the building’s owner for “deteriorated and broken mudsills” at the base of scaffolding that wrapped the property. The damage could affect the scaffolding’s “structural stability causing a potential collapse,” the fine read.

The building is owned by a limited liability company, 1915 Realty, which bought the property in 2004 for $3 million, records show. The company could not be reached for comment.

After the collapse on Monday, the city’s Emergency Management Department issued a request for a structural stability inspection of the site.

In 2020, the building’s brick facade was deemed “unsafe” after a required inspection by a structural engineer revealed “significant masonry damage throughout the facade,” including cracks in the brick. The owner was ordered to repair the exterior; it was not immediately known on Monday whether the repairs had been completed.

The engineer’s report determined that the deterioration was “generally caused by aging” as well as exposure to the elements.

“Everybody’s freaked out,” said Henry Grullon, 53, who lives nearby. “Everybody I know that’s in buildings around here is like, ‘Oh, my God, is my building next?’”

Kitty Bennett contributed research.