#NYNews 17 Injured as Scaffold Collapses Onto Bus in Harlem

By ANDY NEWMAN and MATT FLEGENHEIMER

Ángel Franco/The New York TimesA construction accident showered scaffolding and bricks onto a city bus in Harlem Tuesday morning.

Updated, 12:18 p.m. | Seventeen people were injured when a building scaffold collapsed onto a city bus at West 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem around 9:25 a.m. Tuesday, the Fire Department said. Fire officials described the injuries as minor and not life threatening and said no one was missing.
The scaffolding had been erected at 301 West 125th Street, a five-story brick building that was being demolished, the Department of Buildings said. Bricks from the building littered the street.
A police spokesman at the scene said that eight of the injured people were passengers on the bus and that two police officers sustained minor injuries. He said it appeared from preliminary accounts that during work on the elevator shaft in the building, bricks fell from building onto the scaffolding, knocking it down.
A spokeswoman for the buildings department, Jennifer Gilbert, said that the demolition project had permits and that the department received a complaint about the demolition on Sept. 7, but that inspectors sent to the site found nothing amiss. Officials at the company doing the demolition, Disano Demolition of Queens, were at the site behind police tape and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sasha Chavkin/The New York World

Sasha Chavkin, a reporter for The New York World, a new investigative journalism site housed at Columbia Journalism School, was on the bus, a Bx15 headed west on 125th Street.
“We pulled into the stop and I heard a falling sound of something collapsing toward the back, and the back of the bus filled up with smoke,” Mr. Chavkin said. “People were running from the back and screaming. After about a minute, the bus driver let everyone off the bus. “I talked to a kid in the back who said he thought he was going to die. He said rubble had fallen through the windows of the bus.”
Islam Mohammad, who runs a fruit stand across the street from the accident, said that passengers who had been waiting at the stop got on the bus just moments before the collapse.
At the scene of the accident, a busy commercial strip lined with clothing stores and other retail stores, firefighters swarmed the bus and the collapsed scaffolding.
Shortly before noon, a transit worker started the bus and drove it down the block from the scene, brick and debris still clinging to its damaged rear half. A tow truck picked it up and dragged it west on West 125th Street, out of sight.
Patrick Wall contributed reporting.

Ángel Franco/The New York TimesFirefighters worked to remove scaffolding that fell on top of the bus during the collapse.

Building Collapses onto Bus in Harlem

By Alison Fox

Rani Molla for The Wall Street Journal

125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem on Tuesday morning.

Several Harlem streets remain closed after a parts of a five–story building collapsed onto a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus traveling along 125th Street Tuesday morning.
No serious injuries have been reported, but 18 people–including two police officers–suffered minor ailments, said Cas Holloway, deputy mayor for operations.
The building had at least one complaint of falling bricks on Sept. 7. That was followed up with a problem-free inspection, said Holloway. But BJ Group, owner of the Danice clothing store next door, said his employees have complained of pungent fumes and “unusually strong vibrations.”
Group said he lodged several complaints with the site foreman. “Very little was done,” he added.
Bernadette Robinson, 32 years old, was running to catch the affected bus to get to work, but decided to wait for the next one. Robinson, who works in case management, was on another bus when the building collapsed.
“I was a few seconds from being on that bus,” said Robinson, who lives in the Bronx.
Midtown resident Monique Key was waiting for the M60 on her way to school when she heard rumbling. She turned around, saw the bricks falling and ran for her life.
“I turned around and looked and you could see the whole thing come down,” said Key, 43. “I ran — I took flight. All you heard were the bricks and the metal. I was frightened.”

Rani Molla for The Wall Street Journal

125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem on Tuesday morning.

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