So this article mentions a 2020 engineering report that had noted a bowed and cracking parapet. It’s certainly possible the parapet let go and landed against that corner, taking out the column.
I think the engneering report speaks more to the general state of decay that was poorly understood. There are photos of the bowed parapet and the length of it is not what collapsed.
Right now the news reporting is still in the spaghetti phase. Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
Unlike Davenport, the signs were not as overt but in hindsight, they may have been just as damning.
I agree that eye witness reports may not be the most qualified, but they saw something and believe what they saw. Another witness saw men working on the building before it collapsed. It will be interesting how this story comes together.
In Davenport it can be seen that the point loads at the second floor were the most severe cause of degredation, where succesive loads peaked. I think that should have been the biggest take away from the disaster. It may not be intuitive to look away from the foundation level for signs of impending failure. Just as we look at the column and see the cracks, we really needed to look up to see the real problem. Of course that is hidden from plain view.
Again we await for more news of what all went down.
P.S. I can't see anything that looks like the column. 3DDave, can you post a photo?
The video player on that site doesn't allow a good way of pausing without also overlaying a giant "play" button triangle over the area of interest.
The building corner column appears just between the right side of the foreground scaffold and the mid-sidewalk series of the scaffold posts. I snipped it - look just above the arrow point. There is what appears to be a cloud of dust following it. At the end one can see how the awning is forced away from the building rather than being smashed straight down.
I see things leaning over followed by the column crushing, followed by the awning coming down. This would be consistent with the structure failing from the upper levels. Witnesses evacuated the bodega because of significant creaking preceding the collapse.
So are we thinking it was a local failure in the column that lead to leaning but not total rupture/collapse of the column? Then as it the wall above leaned it lead to a overload and full compression failure?
Composite of both videos queued on the awning lights.
It appears as though the east face of the building came down first, pushing the east scaffolding north. The animated guy in the white shirt and ball cap looks as though his attention is directed to the east face as well. I question whether the seven story column of brick had any ties to the floor levels (on the east face).
There is also this vertical seam which appears to require maintenance to avoid water ingress.
Street scene with trash bin and white box seen in above GIFs located for perspective. Most of the action early in the collapse seems to happen east of the trash bin, which is why I believe we are seeing the east side scaffolding come down first, not the column bursting.
Again, for perspective, the relatively narrow column of brickwork that came down. It's seems odd that anything collapsing would push (and tip) the east scaffolding north, but that is what the videos plainly show.
Apparently the collapse was triggered by workers taking a support column apart after being reassured by an engineer that the column was decorative.
Also, great footage of an excavator being used to rip down parts of the building, suggesting that it was plenty safe for people to go get their belongings, given the brutal loads required to essentially tear the floor joists and walls apart would be far in excess of tiptoeing residents gathering pictures and furniture.
Whoa! It sounds as though they were dismantling the corner pier. That's insane! That accounts for the dark enclosure visible in the early MTA video frames. I still wonder if the pier burst or if the support beam sitting on it gave way first.
![[hourglass]](/data/assets/smilies/hourglass.gif "[hourglass] [hourglass]")
