Wall Fall A Close Call For NYC
City Says No One Hurt; Collapse A Big Mess, With Many Questions
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Play CBS Video Video Landslide Hits NYC Highway A 50-foot retaining wall collapsed onto New York's Henry Hudson Parkway, shutting down traffic and providing some dramatic footage. WCBS' helicopter was on the scene.
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Video NYC Highway Wall Collapses Commuters in New York had a slow ride Thursday after a huge wall collapsed on the West Side Highway. There are no reports of fatalities or injuries. Drew Levinson reports.
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Unlucky, and lucky: the collapse of a century-old wall dumped tons of debris onto one of New York's busiest highways and crushed cars on a nearby residential street; officials say no one was killed. (AP)
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New Yorkers climbed up to the roof of this apartment building to get a firsthand look at the collapse some said sounded like the roar of an earthquake. (AP)
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Police inspect the scene of the collapse, which came at the beginning of the afternoon rush hour, backing up traffic for miles as thousands of commuters tried to figure out another way to get home. (AP)
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"It was just fortunate that nothing worse happened," he said.
The mayor said police and firefighters on the scene in response to the first few rocks that fell down were witnesses to the collapse about five minutes later.
As firefighters removed debris and tree branches from the parkway's northbound lanes, neighborhood residents gathered along other parts of the retaining wall to see what happened. Several described the wall as shoddy and old and said they had complained about it.
According to Department of Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall, the wall - now owned by the Castle Village housing complex - was built between 1905 and 1908 along with Paterno Castle, a mansion owned by real estate developer Charles Paterno. The wall was sold to Castle Village in 1938.
"For years, water has been seeping through, and they have been fixing it," said Weinshall.
Sarah Morgridge, who works for local Councilman Robert Jackson, said workers for Castle Village have been trying to reinforce the wall recently. "There was a major corrective action for over the last six months," said Morgridge. "This is definitely not a case of neglect."
City traffic and Castle Village officials had already scheduled a meeting for Friday to discuss the wall.
Bloomberg praised the work of the multiple city agencies responding to the scene, noting that police department helicopters had carried firefighters and other emergency workers.
"It just goes to show the cooperation that we had," he said.
Earlier in the week, police and fire officials clashed over how to respond to major emergencies, specifically biological, chemical or radiological attacks, and Bloomberg had warned that anyone who didn't follow the city's new protocol - which gives police the lead role - would be out of a job. A top fire chief had criticized the protocol, saying firefighters are better trained and equipped to handle certain emergencies.
The Henry Hudson Parkway, named for the explorer and built in the 1930s, runs along Manhattan's West Side near the Hudson River and travels north to the Bronx and New York suburbs. The Manhattan portion of the highway was temporarily closed during the 1970s because it was in disrepair.
©MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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