A building in center-city Philadelphia (i.e. downtown) collapsed during demolition Wednesday morning, killing six people and injuring thirteen more. City first responders worked through the night and into Thursday looking for people through the rubble before finally clearing the site in the afternoon.
The fallen building (on South 22nd Street) was a Salvation Army, which collapsed under the weight of a wall from an adjacent building being torn down. The building under demolition was owned by STB Investments, a New York City developer. Richard Basciano, the majority owner of STB, was also a prominent figure in the New York sex industry and owned many adult movie houses (peep shows) and sex shops throughout the Manhattan and the five borroughs in the 1990s.
In 1995, the City Council of New York changed zoning laws, prohibiting sex businesses from operating within 500 feet of schools, day cares, and houses of worship. The move was largely a maneuver to clean up Times Square and other heavily-touristed areas, and in turn crumbled much of Basciano's empire.
In Philadelphia, the sex-shop mogul owns several spaces on Market Street (the main avenue running through downtown), and had said he was planning on demolishing several properties.
"We will fully investigate this tragedy and get to the bottom of what happened, how, when and why," Mayor Michael A. Nutter said in a statement on Thursday.
Now, the demolition company - Griffin Campell - has come under further inspection. As of late Thursday, the Department of Licensing and Inspections in Philadelphia said they had inspected four other construction and demolition sites where Griffin Campbell was working, according to the New York Times. Of the four sites, two were in violation of city code and work was suspended.
According to city records, the demolition firm has outstanding violations for several other properties in Philadelphia and the surrounding area.
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