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The leaning tower of Manhattan

By David Freedlander | dfreedlander@am-ny.com

January 17, 2008

287 Broadway in lower Manhattan is being supported by wooden beams after the demolition of an adjoining building. (Dave Sanders / January 16, 2008)

You don't have to go to Italy to see a leaning tower anymore, just head to Lower Manhattan.

A landmarked 1872 cast-iron building is looking strangely similar to the Tower of Pisa, leaning precipitously to one side after the demolition and excavation of an adjacent site. Engineers have placed long wooden supports against the wall to keep the building, on 287 Broadway, from tipping over.

"It's terrible. One day you own a business and the next you are out of business for nothing that you did," said David Jaroslawicz, the lawyer for the Yenem Corp., the group that owned a basement diner in the building. "It's only in New York that you build big buildings and no one pays attention to these details. It's like capitalism has taken away humanism."

Settlement over time caused the building to lean slightly to the south by approximately four inches, according to city buildings officials. After John Buck Co., a Chicago-based developer, began excavation work on the neighboring property to develop a 20-story residential tower, monitors installed on 287 Broadway recorded further movement of between 3 and 4 inches. In November, residents and businesses were told to vacate the building.

Today, the diner looks like it belongs in a ghost town residents evacuated.

Except for the dust throughout the eatery, salt-and-pepper shakers lie in their place on countertops, surrounding metal napkin dispensers. A Santa Claus poster peers out from one window, a remnant from a season passed.

Ominously, on another window, a sign reads, "VACATE -Department of Buildings has determined that conditions on this premise are imminently perilous to life," while another from the American Red Cross has a phone number for anyone who needs assistance.

The problem with the Broadway building is not unique.

A few streets over, on West Broadway, Eric Schwimmer said his whole building shook when hotelier Jason Pomeranc demolished an existing bank next door and built Smyth, a luxury hotel condominium.

Now, large joists keep the building intact while construction for the new continues apace.

"What am I going to do?" said Schwimmer, whose family has owned the building and Mudville 9, a burger and beer joint on the ground floor, for 25 years. "I'm just a little guy. How am I going to go against a billionaire?"

In July the Department of Buildings started a Special Enforcement Plan, which created a team of engineers and inspectors who examine excavation sites. It was this team that noticed the unsafe excavation work at 287 Broadway in November and halted it before the building collapsed.

Excavation safety depends upon the professional level of care of the owner's engineer of record and the contractors," said Buildings Department spokeswoman Kate Lindquist in a statement. "There are sites all over the city that are excavated without damage to adjoining properties."

Numerous phone calls yesterday to John Buck Co.; Hunter Atlantic, the superintendent in charge of construction; and Century Realty, which owns 287 Broadway, were not returned.