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May 3, 2007
A Parapet Falls; Atlantic Yards Stalls
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Norman Oder
If some episodes in the Atlantic Yards saga seem predictable—demonstrations, court hearings, and strategic statements by developer Forest City Ratner and opponents—the events of April 26 assuredly were not. For reasons still unknown, the 200-foot-long parapet of the Ward Bakery—the terra cotta tile-covered former industrial building on Pacific Street that preservationists seek to save—collapsed at about 9:45 a.m., raining debris to the ground, damaging several parked cars.
Nobody was hurt, thanks to some luck. There was no scaffolding around the bakery, constructed in 1911, as a longstanding protective shed had been removed recently for sewer work. (It was not required while the only activity at the building was pre-demolition asbestos removal.) Had people been walking on Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues as demonstrators had done just three days earlier, the outcome could have been horrific.
As firefighters responded and cordoned off the street, elected officials, government officials, representatives of the developer, and community members gathered. There were statements to make and help to organize. The most vulnerable were some 95 families in the adjacent homeless shelter, about 350 people, further displaced from Prospect Heights for one night.
Posted by lumi at May 3, 2007 6:59 AM