Photo courtesy of NYC Emergency Management
The partial collapse of a residential tower in a New York City Housing Authority building due to a likely boiler explosion put the spotlight on the city’s aging public housing stock.
A corner of a New York City Housing Authority apartment building collapsed Wednesday morning, following a likely explosion in the 1960s-era building’s boiler system. No injuries or fatalities have been reported.
The brick chimney running the 20-story length of the Bronx building crumbled after an explosion at 8:10am, leading to evacuations in the apartments bordering the damage.
The chimney was connected to the building’s boiler room, which was going through a routine test when the explosion happened. It’s possible a boiler was defective and triggered the blast, Kaz Daughtry, NYC Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, said late Wednesday.
Gas service for all 11 structures in the Mayor John Purroy Mitchel Houses complex was turned off on Wednesday morning. Inspectors examined the foundation and went door-to-door in the damaged building to make sure the apartments were structurally sound, said Zachary Iscol, commissioner of New York City Emergency Management. Teams would also perform some demolition on what remained of the chimney to access the building’s basement.
“There is a lot of concern, a lot of anxiety, from the residents that live here at Mitchel about what happens in the long-term,” said Vanessa L. Gibson, the Bronx borough president during a press conference right after the collapse. “Over the next several hours, as inspectors are in the building, we will do everything possible to make sure that we minimize the disruption and the anxiety of the residents and families here.”
Aging Buildings, Known Problems
Like other buildings in the New York City public housing stock, the Mitchel complex is decades old. It was built in 1966—other NYCHA structures date to the 1940s and the newest, built in 2003, has only 13 residential units.
To update the aging housing, the city estimated in 2017 that its buildings would need $31.8 billion in capital improvement projects over the next five years. Hundreds of these projects are underway at any given time, including at the Mitchel complex, which will need nearly $717.5 million dollars-worth of changes though 2044. Building heating renovations are on the list: Those repairs will cost almost $116.6 million over the next two decades.
Some of the coming Michel complex modifications include high-efficiency gas boilers, equipment that will soon be banned in new affordable housing. Local Law 154 will prevent affordable housing less than seven stories from using fossil fuels for heating, cooking or cleaning starting in December of this year. The rule will apply to all affordable housing in 2027.
Another partial collapse happened just under two years ago in another NYCHA building. The corner of another building in the Bronx crumbled in December 2023—also without any fatalities or injuries—after workers removed a column that had been mislabeled as nonstructural. The responsible engineer paid a $10,000 fine and agreed to not take on any facade inspections in the city for two years.
