For anyone that does evaluations of existing buildings this may be interesting. Check out the google street view of the corner that collapsed, fairly large vertical cracks on both sides of the masonry pier at the corner. There must have been a steel column in there supporting beams over the storefronts, which in turn supported a lot of masonry. Useful reminder for those of us that look at big cracks all the time and start to become immune.
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NYC Partial Collapse
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milkshakelake
Structural
This is scary. I sent it to my team as a reminder of the importance of inspections.
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and a reminder to look at the context of the crack. nyc is littered with scary cracks, probably half of the building stock is gargage. but if the crack is mid field of an unreinforced masonry wall and you undestand why it's there then that may be a different animal than a crack in what is likely a steel column supporting a ton of building. of course sometimes you may think you know what the crack is from and be wrong, the scariest of all.
milkshakelake
Structural
I wouldn't blame the city too much, because I feel like that's a mistake a lot of engineers could've made. I know almost all of the city engineers and they're not dumb. In racing, they call it a "racing incident" where nobody is really to blame for a collision. Or maybe I'm saying that as a psychological defense to myself, because I might have made the same assumption.
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