Demolition

A month before 2136 Market St. collapsed, Stephen Field looked at the buildings being torn down on the block and envisioned a terrible fate. Facades dangled over the sidewalk, workers without hard hats smashed crowbars into bricks, and nothing separated pedestrians or the nearby subway entrance from flying debris, he said. So, on May 5, the 49-year-old Logan Square resident filed a complaint with the city's 311 website. The demolition, he wrote, "appears to be clearly unsafe.

The heavy equipment blamed for causing a building collapse that killed six people last Wednesday was only to be used that day for removing debris, and the contractor in charge of the site "didn't see" the excavator doing demolition, his defense attorney said Tuesday. Kenneth Edelin, attorney for contractor Griffin Campbell, said his client was on the job site at 22d and Market Streets when the building fell on the neighboring Salvation Army thrift shop. "He was scared to death, just like everybody else," Edelin said.

He was once an "undisputed king" of porn. But in his twilight years, he has recast himself as a visionary for a more vibrant downtown. The grand plan of 87-year-old Richard C. Basciano collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris Wednesday when the botched demolition of one of his Center City buildings rained death down on a building below. In an interview last year, Basciano talked of his ambitious plans for the 2100 and 2200 blocks of Market Street, where he planned to transform a decrepit stretch of nondescript buildings that included his shuttered porn theater.

Click here to see an interactive graphic showing what went wrong in the Market Street building collapse. BEFORE the collapse of the Market Street building that left six people dead on Wednesday, Carl Mason had never heard of Griffin Campbell Construction, he said. "They're cowboys," said Mason, president and owner of Central Salvage Co. Inc., one of the city's major demolition contractors. He explained that while unqualified contractors have always been around, he has seen their numbers grow amid the recent economic downturn.

The same day criminal charges were formally brought against the excavator operator in last week's fatal building collapse in Center City, engineers and lawyers picked through the rubble at the site Sunday, gathering evidence with low- and high-tech equipment for a mounting number of lawsuits. Litigation is underway on behalf of at least four victims of the catastrophe that killed six workers and shoppers at the Salvation Army thrift shop Wednesday morning when a four-story brick wall fell onto the adjoining single-story shop, lawyers said.

The block of Market Street where two buildings collapsed today is not just one of the most blighted stretches remaining in Center City; it is a block where blight was ignored for decades by successive city administrations. The collection of small, decrepit commerical buildings, which includes Hoagie City and the Salvation Army Thrift Store, was once part a larger empire of blight assembled by Philadelphia's most notorious slumlord, Sam Rappaport. Even as the rest of Center City took on a polished gloss, the deteriorated Market Street buildings were among the first things people saw as they entered the city from 30th Street Station.

Residents determined to save Ardmore Junior High from ruins have vowed to fight on despite a Commonwealth Court decision upholding the demolition. Attorney Alan Candor, representing four Lower Merion residents, said Tuesday that he would file an appeal of the June 18 ruling by today's deadline. Meanwhile, the school district is trying to move ahead with the demolition, which now may cost more than the $1.5 million budgeted last year. A panel of three judges rejected the Lower Merion residents' contention that the state Department of Education and the school district had denied them a hearing in the case and had ignored historic preservation laws in authorizing the demolition last year.

An uninsured plumbing business destroyed in a Darby Borough fire has been condemned by the Darby Borough Council, and will be demolished at taxpayer expense. The blaze destroyed the Janess Supply Co. Inc. building at New Walnut Street and Chester Pike last Sunday. Also damaged were the Darby Shoe Store at 888 Main St. and an 18-unit apartment building at 896 Main St. On Wednesday, the council voted unanimously to declare the shoe store and the plumbing buildings unsafe and a danger to residents.

The Burlington County prosecutor has subpoenaed Willingboro School District records as the latest step in its investigation of the demolition of a vacant school building and the use of maintenance workers for the job. The roof of the former Alternate School collapsed March 13 on a team of workers, killing one and injuring five others. School board members were told Monday night about the subpoena, which requests minutes and videotaped recordings of all meetings when the board discussed the building's sale, removal or demolition.

The demolition crew, hired by the city at a cost of $710,000, is primed and ready for the massive demolition of the historic and abandoned Mayfair House in Mount Airy on Monday. But yesterday the owner, Arnav Industries of New York City, went before Common Pleas Judge Russell Nigro seeking an order to block the impending demolition. Nigro delayed a decision and called both sides to his chambers for a meeting today. Carl Primavera, who represents Arnav, said his client was close to an agreement with a new developer and that the 14-story, 244-unit building at Lincoln Drive and Johnson Street could become housing for senior citizens.

On the Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden, the former Sears, Roebuck & Co. store is slowly coming down - but not without the eyes of city inspectors closely watching. Is the work area surrounded by a barricade? Is water available to wet down the dust? Is the appropriate equipment being used, and is it being operated safely? The inspectors visit the site daily, taking photos of the progress, said James Rizzo, construction expert in Camden's Department of Code Enforcement, Building Bureau.

The heavy equipment blamed for causing a building collapse that killed six people last Wednesday was only to be used that day for removing debris, and the contractor in charge of the site "didn't see" the excavator doing demolition, his defense attorney said Tuesday. Kenneth Edelin, attorney for contractor Griffin Campbell, said his client was on the job site at 22d and Market Streets when the building fell on the neighboring Salvation Army thrift shop. "He was scared to death, just like everybody else," Edelin said.

FELICIA HILL had heard it for weeks, the jarring sound of bricks slamming onto the roof of the Salvation Army thrift shop. She and her co-workers at the narrow store, at 22nd and Market streets, talked about being able to feel the impact as chunks from the skeleton of the neighboring four-story property plummeted to the ground during an ongoing demolition. Hill, a mother of seven, once again heard the bricks pounding on the shop's roof on June 5 - but this time, the sound was a harbinger of doom.

The same day criminal charges were formally brought against the excavator operator in last week's fatal building collapse in Center City, engineers and lawyers picked through the rubble at the site Sunday, gathering evidence with low- and high-tech equipment for a mounting number of lawsuits. Litigation is underway on behalf of at least four victims of the catastrophe that killed six workers and shoppers at the Salvation Army thrift shop Wednesday morning when a four-story brick wall fell onto the adjoining single-story shop, lawyers said.

Click here to see an interactive graphic showing what went wrong in the Market Street building collapse. BEFORE the collapse of the Market Street building that left six people dead on Wednesday, Carl Mason had never heard of Griffin Campbell Construction, he said. "They're cowboys," said Mason, president and owner of Central Salvage Co. Inc., one of the city's major demolition contractors. He explained that while unqualified contractors have always been around, he has seen their numbers grow amid the recent economic downturn.

Felicia Hill, 36 and a mother of seven, was pricing clothing in the rear of the Salvation Army thrift shop Wednesday when she felt an earthquake-like shake, heard a whoosh of wind, then saw a wall fall in, kicking up a cloud of choking dust. Through the haze, she saw only the hand of a fast-buried coworker, Kimberly Finnegan, with whom she'd been speaking moments earlier. "I started running for my life, and all I could think about was my children," Hill said Monday at a news conference in which her attorneys announced they were filing several lawsuits in the building collapse that killed six workers and shoppers and injured 13. A firefighter and a passerby whose name she never learned help pull Hill, who had been battered by falling debris, from the wreckage, she said.

He was once an "undisputed king" of porn. But in his twilight years, he has recast himself as a visionary for a more vibrant downtown. The grand plan of 87-year-old Richard C. Basciano collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris Wednesday when the botched demolition of one of his Center City buildings rained death down on a building below. In an interview last year, Basciano talked of his ambitious plans for the 2100 and 2200 blocks of Market Street, where he planned to transform a decrepit stretch of nondescript buildings that included his shuttered porn theater.

A Philadelphia architect recommended Griffin T. Campbell and two other city contractors for the demolition job that led to Wednesday's fatal building collapse, but left it to the owner of the building to make the final pick, the architect's lawyer said. Architect Plato Marinakos Jr. said the corporate owner of the building, STB Investments, chose Campbell, according to Michael P. Kelly, Marinakos' lawyer. STB is led by Richard C. Basciano and others, according to city records.

UPDATE: SEAN BENSCHOP, who was behind the controls of an excavator at the site of the deadly Market Street building collapse this week, turned himself in to police Saturday afternoon and will be charged with six counts of involuntary manslaughter, police said. A law-enforcement source said yesterday that blood tests showed that Benschop, 42, had traces of a painkiller and marijuana in his system on Wednesday, when a partially demolished four-story building at 22nd and Market streets collapsed onto a neighboring Salvation Army store, killing six people and injuring 13 others.

Mayor Nutter and Licenses and Inspection Commissioner Carlton Williams are to announce new proposed demolition standards and controls for the city. The move comes two days after six people were killed and 14 others injured when a Center City thrift store collapsed during the botched demolition of a building next door. The mayor, Williams and other city officials are to outline the proposed standards and controls at a 2 p.m. news conference at City Hall.