Bronx Apartment building partial collapse 18

[AusG]

1915 Billingsley Terrace in the Bronx
Link

 

[spsalso]

It is refreshing to have a couple of high placed public servants be so clear, transparent and forceful. And not take 2 years to do an in depth investigation.

Thanks, guys--good work!


I am also impressed that they're letting people get their stuff. I again recall how things went down at Champlain Towers.


Good work, NYC!


spsalso

 

[Sym P. le]

I see they moved the icebox out of the way.

The question is, would you describe any of the following bricks as "loose"?

 

[lexpatrie]

I'm going to point something out here.

a) there seems to be an "it's a facade" presumption going around in New York City. Not based on anything, mind, the engineers are just presuming this without any basis. This will cause problems. Particularly when a load-bearing wall (cough, obvious now from the wood studs, cough) is presumed to be a "facade".

b) Even a facade can kill, in fact, it frankly OFTEN does. Let's remember the building that killed Erica Tishman had a "facade" problem that killed her. So yea, a facade condition CAN be the same as an unsafe building. That's how people get killed by unsafe buildings, when things fall on them. (I'm looking at you Neil Gorsuch, freezing to death is a life-safety issue). At least at one point, blaming the victim was the strategy du jour. Erica, as an Architect, should have known.....

https://www.nydailynews.com/2020/10...known-sidewalks-are-dangerous-city-attorneys/

this is a reskinned version of "what was she wearing." Reprehensible. Columbus, Ohio has a facade ordinance because a city councilman was killed by falling building debris from a disintegrated facade as well. (OK, I guess Ben Espy survived, I wasn't there at the time.

https://seaoo.org/downloads/LIC/2016_08_lc_feature.pdf)

c) let's also remember that somewhere in the Tishman sequence, the building owner sued and got the department of building inspections to stop "harrassing" them to address a life-safety issue, courtesy of a judge, so the fines for failing to do anything besides scaffolding stopped.

(Correct me if I'm wrong on that one, but that's what I remember finding out, but it wasn't widely reported.)

There's a lot of ethical language about when your judgement as a professional engineer is being overridden by non engineers, and yet. Now, that doesn't quite seem to be the case in this particular one, but even so. I wanted to mention it.

(I'll skip over the part where most of this facade stuff can be done by either a licensed architect or a structural engineer. The two are not equivalent.)

 

[Tomfh]

That’s wild that a pier like that would be assumed non load bearing

 

[Sym P. le]

Someone needs to publish the report and engineering instructions like Davenport. They talk about beams and piers as though the dumb public wouldn't be better served by more information. We still don't know with certainty what they are talking about. No wonder the public is confused.

Granted, it's a bit early for all manner of publication, but Davenport was all over it.

 

[spsalso]

There appears to be an assumption "out there" that the facade of a building is there to present a pretty face to the street. That view is perhaps contaminated with another definition of facade: a false, superficial, or artificial appearance

This could lead to the belief/assumption that the facade of a building is only a decorative superficial thing, and thus not structural.

Of course, a real engineer would never make that curious leap.


But if you view facade repair as making sure useless decorations don't fall on people, you could lose track of the structural element.


spsalso

 

[Sym P. le]

Having spent time reviewing it, I now think we are mostly seeing the work screening mesh tilting with the east scaffolding interspersed with various flashes of light and shadows. I also believe the column ruptures and sprays bricks into it but I don't think I can conclude that the column leans over.

Here's another GIF, the bro's coming to their senses. There is a flash of white (something coming down?) and buddy in white turns to leave. Right after, another rustle (just below) and buddy kicks it into gear, probably sparked by audible queues. Also, buddy in the black shirt needs a little more convincing but with the second rustle gets lit.

 

[alphabeta2020]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VQ-RQbWcIbw&si=GlDjVA51zywk-Fif

1construction work was being done on the day of the collapse contrary to what first responders were initially told
That work was to repair cracks on the buildings corner pier
2 initial findings was that workers were pulling out essential bricks like a game of jenga before the whole thing came crashing down
3 Clearly removing bricks on a pier that supports 6 floors of the building above is not correct

 

[XR250]

https://www.crainsnewyork.com/real-... who inspected,according to Mayor Eric Adams.

 

[spsalso]

It's at least embarrassing that the contractor didn't notice that the corner post of the building just might be structural.

Or perhaps he did, and brought the subject up with the engineer. Love to hear that conversation.



spsalso

 

[Sym P. le]

If I can read into the verbal nonsense presented on news channels, the notion of pier bricks being "facade" would be that the outer layer of bricks was non structural whereas the inner bricks were structural. Of course we know this not to be true, but try explaining that to the talking heads so they can accurately phrase their stories.

If that's so, the workers were blindly removing the outer wythe (bricks) with the intention of installing a veneer to make the column look nice. This is Davenport 2.0.

Implicit to the term wythe is that it is tied into all the other bricks to act as a composite entity.

 

[Tomfh]

Of course, a real engineer would never make that curious leap.

Is this irony? The order appears to have come from the original engineer.

 

[phamENG]

[link Sym P. le]Implicit to the term wythe is that it is tied into all the other bricks to act as a composite entity.[/url]

I disagree. There are single wythe walls and multi-wythe walls. A wythe is simply a wall or portion of a wall one brick thick. It can be composite or non-composite.

The 'facade' bricks are usually different from the bricks in the inner wythe(s). Bricks with a nice, smooth, consistent outer finish are typically more expensive to produce, so even in a multiwythe wall the outer wythe is typically a different type of brick and often not even tied in. Now, on a building this big I would expect it to be, but I've done several 2 or 3 story buildings where the outer wythe was nice face brick and the other two were rougher brick that got covered with plaster on the interior with the 'facade' bricks not tied in. That doesn't mean they weren't participating, but they weren't providing the same composite support if they had been tied in.

With a few very rare exceptions, we stopped building multiwythe brick walls in the US a long time ago - nearly out of living memory. So I'd guess about 95% of the viewership of these news channels don't really have the vocabulary to listen to and understand a 30 second news clip that describes these things in minute, esoteric detail. Facade gets the point across as well as anything else, and it's closer to something that most people in NYC probably do understand.

 

[spsalso]

I believe I read that the engineer said the contractor wasn't working on that corner pier, that they were working on the second floor, and up.

If so, then it can get difficult to blame him/them if the failure was in the pier--they weren't there.

There also seems to be comments that the engineer is on record as saying that the pier was non-structural. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't. But if the crew wasn't working on that pier, what difference, in this case, does it matter.

There's a chance that the problem was that the Building Department sat on approval for doing the actual structural job (as opposed to the "decorative" facade repair). And an implication that if they hadn't slow-walked permission for THAT, the pier would have been fixed before it failed.

It's gonna be interesting, for sure.


spsalso

 

[dik]

Not quite correct... with historic masonry, different bricks in the same firing often were vitrified 'better', depending on their location in the kiln. These were often selected for use on the exterior because they were better quality and more durable. The bricks on the outer wythe, in older masonry, were structural; they were not intended as a veneer, unless constructed with an 'air' space, and only tied in with ties (S-rods). Sometimes the S-rods were structural.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[jerseyshore]

The CBS link above says that the engineer specified removing and replacing loose bricks. Something we've all written a thousand times I'm sure. But their other comments bashing the engineer seem to indicate there were other comments/notes/details on the plan that are worse than that and deserving of all of this blame.
Has anyone pulled the NYC records for the plans yet?

 

[dik]

Loose bricks likely do not contribute to load transfer to any success... Other stuff may be more telling.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[FacEngrPE]

Casey Jones PE has published two videos so far, makes a point in the second that the NYC Department of Buildings seems to be in a hurry to judge the engineer.
New York Building Collapse Casey Jones Dec 13 2023

https://youtu.be/JBYjf0xRDNo[/URL]]Update - New York Building Collapse Casey Jones Dec 16 2023

NYC Department of Buildings Self-service for online Permits, Appointments and Applications

I copied some of the inspection documents dated 2001 to the attached file.
Permits for the facade work dated 2003 are in the DOB file (not copied). The permit states drawings are filed herein, but i was unable to locate them in the records.

Reading between the lines, the item the DOB found concerning is that the POST with cracks was not addressed in the inspection report (as far as I can tell).

 

[Sym P. le]

I disagree. There are single wythe walls and multi-wythe walls ...

I stand corrected. I knew this but lost my way and contributed to the issue I rail against.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wythe[/URL]]A wythe may be independent of, or interlocked with, the adjoining wythe(s).

The purpose of multi-wythe masonry, as seen in Davenport and this incident, was to interlock the wythes to create a stronger composite structure. The face layer may be a more expensive masonry unit but it's function as a structural element is no less important.

Loose bricks likely do not contribute to load transfer to any success.

Very true, but if a column/pier under compression develops loose bricks, it would be prudent to identify the cause and provide a remedy. Usually this would require lifting the load and reconstituting the column before reloading it. A composite multi-wythe structure cannot be made whole by stripping the face layer and substituting a veneer.

Everyone agrees that gargoyles and such should not be falling on peoples heads, but in these multi-wythe structures, it's about more than just another pretty face.

This column was highly fractured.

 

[Sym P. le]

I can't find a copy of the Koenigsberg engineering report so please allow me to start with snippets that have been revealed by ABC NEWS 7.

FISP - Façade Inspection & Safety Program