NYC suspends engineer for work at Bronx building collapse site

NEW YORK — The administration of New York Mayor Eric Adams suspended an engineer Friday for failing to properly identify a support beam at the Bronx building that collapsed this week, but officials have yet to issue an official cause for the disaster.

The city said it had suspended the inspection authorities of the engineer, Richard Koenigsberg, after he misidentified a load-bearing column as a decorative column this year. He had been hired by the building’s owner to inspect the property as part of a construction job.

The engineer deemed the building “unsafe” in reports that he filed with the city in 2020 and 2021 after finding cracked bricks, loose and damaged mortar, and other deficiencies. But he misdiagnosed the role of an essential load-bearing column in plans filed with the Buildings Department in June, according to City Hall.

About 170 people were displaced as a result of the collapse. No one died.

“There are over a million buildings across our city, and it is crucial that New Yorkers are safe in every one of those buildings,” Adams said in a statement. “But when those entrusted to keep us safe cut corners and make catastrophic mistakes, we’re going to take swift action and hold them accountable.”

“Our initial investigation into this collapse has made clear that the engineer involved has no business assessing the exterior walls of buildings in New York City,” Adams added.

The city’s buildings commissioner, James Oddo, said in a statement that it was the city’s “civic duty to immediately suspend this engineer’s designation.”

Koenigsberg said by phone that he had not been contacted by the city. He declined to comment further.

The city said its investigation into the collapse was ongoing. The Bronx district attorney’s office has also opened a criminal investigation into the collapse.

The corner of the nearly century-old building crumbled to the street Monday, opening a section of the structure to the elements. Some residents were allowed to enter the building Thursday to recover belongings.

The 47-unit building, located on Billingsley Terrace, is owned by 1915 Realty LLC. David Kleiner, the manager of the building, has said the building was in “perfect condition” and was “just upgraded” before the collapse.

“I don’t think there’s any criminality,” he said Thursday, but added that the Bronx district attorney, Darcel Clark, is “welcome to check.”

The brick building had been flagged for more than 100 violations, according to city records. But the city said it had no record of any open violations related to structural issues at the time of the incident.

The collapse has put renewed focus on the stability of New York’s aging, and sometimes crumbling, housing stock. The Bronx apartment, a seven-story structure located in Morris Heights, was built in 1927.

In recent years, residents of the brick complex logged complaints that described strange smells, elevator failures that lasted days and broader concerns about the fundamental soundness of the structure.

In 2015, a resident’s complaint said, “the building is highly unstable,” adding, “you can hear it cracking and deteriorating from the inside,” according to city Buildings Department records.

On Thursday, engineers were beginning to demolish the collapsed section of the structure.

The Buildings Department said that it informed the building’s owner that, after the demolition of the corner of the building, further actions must be taken to ensure the safety of the structure. Ultimately, the department said, it would reassess whether residents can reoccupy sections of the building.

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