The sudden Fort Greene building collapse at 125 Park Avenue, which left one woman dead, is distressing residents. Now, it turns out that the building had previous violations, including cracks in the wall and cracks in the stucco. Plus, the owners had filed for partial demolitions last winter, but never went through with it. Buildings Department spokeswoman Ilyse Fink said, "We are doing an analysis of why the building failed. It was in poor condition, and we did have some hard rain over the past few months." It turns out that a billboard had recently been taken off the wall that collapsed. The building was demolished last night.
The collapse occured on the left side of the building, ending up on the roof of the next-door bodega. Store customer Crystal Stoudmire was "wedged" between sheetrock and a refrigerator, and died after a couple minutes. The news footage of the building was absolutely crazy: Take a look at these photographs.
You can search the Deparment of Buildings' Building Information System to see what violations a building may have.
