Landslide closes NYC parkway
NEW YORK -- A stone retaining wall collapsed onto the Henry Hudson Parkway in New York's northern Manhattan during Thursday's afternoon rush hour, burying a stretch of road more than 60 feet long in dirt, rock and debris.
A Fire Department spokeswoman, Maria Lamberti, said that while no injuries were reported, "we don't know for sure" if any people and motor vehicles on the highway were buried by the landslide. Firefighters were bringing in thermal imaging equipment to help determine what or who may be trapped under the debris, WNBC-TV News reported.
The collapse also covered a stretch of Riverside Drive below the retaining wall and above the highway. Parked cars there were buried under rocks and other debris.
Authorities planned to evacuate 1380 Riverside Drive, a 20-story brick apartment building about 10 feet from the collapsed wall, according to Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields, who was at the scene.
The incident was reported at 4 p.m. on a northbound stretch of highway at 181st Street, north of the George Washington Bridge and south of Dyckman Street. The highway was closed to traffic in both directions near the scene, causing traffic jams on other major roads that absorbed the diverted traffic.
The collapse spread debris onto a swath of road at least 60 feet long, said Bloomberg radio traffic reporter Brian McKinley, who viewed the scene from a helicopter. The crumbled section of wall stood at the edge of an apartment complex on a 75-foot embankment above Riverside Drive and the three northbound lanes of the highway. The southbound lanes, separated by a wide median and on a lower level, were closed to traffic. Metro-North commuter trains were running west of the highway.
There was an initial collapse that may have buried three or four parked cars, and then a second, larger collapse that buried 10 cars, WABC-TV News said, citing unidentified witnesses. The first collapse may have prevented drivers from entering that section of the road, the witnesses said.
The highway is a major north-south artery along the western edge of Manhattan. It continues from northern Manhattan into the Bronx, and also is a major access road for the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey. Commercial traffic is barred from the road.
The wall was on the western edge of Castle Village, a high-rise co-operative apartment complex that stretches from 181st Street to 185th Street atop the embankment. The wall was known to be unstable, said Richard Boudreaux, a Los Angeles Times reporter who was visiting friends in the complex at the time.
"It was blocked off by a plastic mesh fence so people wouldn't walk out there," Boudreaux said. "They knew there was a problem. There were some maintenance people out there." A woman who answered the phone at the co-op offices refused to comment and hung up.
The retaining wall was built in the 1930s, WNBC-TV News said. There were no immediate reports of damage to buildings along the embankment, including the Pumpkin House, a three-story brick townhouse cantilevered over the highway at 186th Street.
