XPost: alt.building.construction, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: misc.immigration.usa, alt.politics.republicans, talk.politics.guns   
   From: yamn@erienetworks.net   
      
   Follow-up to:   
   Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2023 05:37:48 -0500   
   From: Revoke Alejandro Mayorkas's citizenship    
   Message-Id: <20231216.053748.266a541d@erienetworks.net>   
      
   An engineer who oversaw inspections of a Bronx apartment building   
   that partially collapsed on Monday “misdiagnosed” a column that was   
   holding up the building, calling it a “decorative” element in plans   
   he filed in June, city officials said Friday.   
      
   Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s buildings commissioner, James Oddo,   
   said the city had suspended the engineer’s authority to inspect   
   building facades and would seek to permanently revoke that   
   authority.   
      
   Nobody was killed or seriously injured in the collapse. But it left   
   more than 170 residents of the building, at 1915 Billingsley   
   Terrace, with no place to live. In addition to the Buildings   
   Department, officials said, the Bronx district attorney’s office and   
   the city’s Department of Investigation are investigating what caused   
   the collapse.   
      
   “When those who are entrusted to keep us safe cut corners and make   
   catastrophic mistakes, we’re going to take swift action and hold   
   them accountable,” Mr. Adams said in a statement. He added that the   
   engineer had “no business assessing the exterior walls of buildings   
   in New York City.”   
      
   Mr. Oddo said in a statement that the engineer had “failed to   
   recognize a clearly structural column as such.”   
      
   “We got lucky that no one was killed in this collapse,” he   
   continued. “We will not take that risk again.”   
      
   Mr. Oddo did not identify the engineer, but Richard Koenigsberg, a   
   veteran inspector of facades in the city, said in a brief interview   
   on Friday that he had filed reports about the building’s condition.   
   His name is on a June filing that was updated in September,   
   Buildings Department records show.   
      
   Mr. Koenigsberg declined to comment on the allegations by the mayor   
   and Mr. Oddo. He said he had not been contacted by city officials   
   since being interviewed the morning after the collapse.   
      
   “I haven’t been disciplined in my lifetime so I am not familiar with   
   the procedures,” Mr. Koenigsberg said, adding that he would hire a   
   lawyer and follow the lawyer’s advice.   
      
   Mr. Oddo said the unnamed engineer had 368 filings under the city’s   
   facade inspection and safety program and that the Buildings   
   Department would review them all as part of its investigation.   
      
   Mr. Koenigsberg said in an earlier interview that he had filed   
   reports with the city that deemed the facade unsafe, but he said he   
   was indicating in those reports that pedestrians needed to be   
   protected from falling debris, not that the building was   
   structurally unsound.   
      
   A corner of the seven-story building cascaded onto the sidewalk in   
   midafternoon Monday, sending pedestrians and motorists running for   
   cover and leaving bedroom walls exposed and clothes flapping in the   
   breeze.   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/nyregion/bronx-collapse-   
   engineer.html/   
      
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