Former Tenants Describe Collapsed Bush Terminal Building: ‘Dilapidated And Decrepit’

Tenants who have rented space at Sunset Park’s Bush Terminal Complex say they were not surprised to learn that the waterfront warehouse located at 1-140 43rd street, reached its demise last night at around 9:30pm.

Hanny Lerner, who once operated her upholstery business, MOD Restoration, in the building next to the one that came crashing down Wednesday, told us the complex has long been plagued with infrastructural problems.

“It’s old, dilapidated and decrepit. No surprise that it collapsed. The others will probably collapse too at some point,” Lerner said.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which owns and operates the Bush Terminal complex where the incident happened, took over the property in 2002. The previous owners had left the buildings, specifically the one that collapsed, in a state of serious disrepair, according to the EDC.

The decaying building, which had been scheduled for demolition next year, sat vacant since the EDC took over the property. Evaluations of the collapse are still underway, but it seems that the building came down because of structural failure of the roof, according to the EDC.

According to the EDC, all of the occupied buildings in the complex are regularly maintained and shouldn’t be crumbling down anytime soon.

“The building had not been used in many years,” Officer Spencer of the NYPD’s 72nd Precinct confirmed.

Firefighters and police officers searched the rubble for half an hour just in case someone had actually been inside the building, but by 10pm they decided that the building was indeed empty at the time of the collapse and that no one was hurt, according to the FDNY.

Updated [4:44pm] with additional information from the EDC.