Police, emergency medics and firefighters rushed to Hudson Sq. at 1:50 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, responding to an apparent partial building collapse at the corner of Spring and Renwick Sts.
According to Fire Department Battalion 7 Chief Jay Jonas, one worker was injured when he fell from the second floor onto a pile of rubble. He was removed to St. Vincent’s Hospital and was reported in stable condition. Jonas said no one else was injured. The chief said provided that there were no irregularities with the demolition company, demolition of the building would continue and that there was no need for an emergency demolition. He said what was left of the two-story building, which at one point served as a volunteer-run 9/11 emergency relief center, was still stable.
Detective Madelyne Galindo, a Police spokesperson, said they had no report of the incident and that they don’t usually give out a person’s name in construction accidents unless the individual dies.
Vinnie Sano, the head of Sano Demolition, the company dismantling the building, said it was in fact not a collapse. Rather, the worker was swinging a sledgehammer to knock down some plaster, but lost his balance and fell 15 ft. through a hole he had just cut through wooden beams. Sano said there had been 10 workers at the site.
A man in an orange hardhat who identified himself as someone who will be “working on the construction” of a new building on the site, also said that it had been an accident, not a collapse. He said all the workers had been wearing hardhats and that everything had been regulation.
He said the new building will be 36,000 sq. ft., 11 stories tall, with 12, high-end condos and retail space on the first floor. He didn’t give the developer’s name.
“It’s going to be a beautiful building, just what they need down here,” he said.
