A “negligent” engineer whose errors led to the collapse of a seven-story Bronx apartment building agreed to pay a $10,000 fine — and serve a two-year city inspection ban, authorities said Thursday.
Professional engineer Richard Koenigsberg’s firm allegedly goofed by incorrectly listing which pillars were decorative and which were needed to hold up the nearly century-old Billingsley Terrace in Morris Heights, according to Mayor Eric Adams’ office.
“Public safety is our administration’s top priority, and the signing of today’s agreement should serve as a reminder to all construction professionals about the importance of carrying out their duties professionally, competently, and, most importantly, safely,” Adams said in a statement.
The city first suspended Koenigsberg’s inspection authority shortly after the Dec. 11 partial collapse, which miraculously didn’t kill anyone.
At the time, Adams said in a statement that a then-unidentified state-licensed engineer made a critical error by labeling a load-bearing column as decorative in plans filed with the Department of Buildings.
Adams and Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo said that they had suspended the engineer’s authority to inspect buildings’ exterior walls and wanted to revoke it permanently, as he had “no business assessing the exterior walls of buildings in New York City.”
“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,” Hizzoner said
In the end, they settled for two years — although Adams’ office said the city might dish out additional punishments after other investigations wrap up by the Department of Buildings, the city’s Department of Investigation and the Bronx District Attorney.
As part of the agreement — which was signed to avoid a formal disciplinary hearing at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings — Koenigsberg agreed to wind down his business over a four-month period, Adams said.
But any job he completed must be reviewed by a third-party engineering firm before it’s submitted to the buildings department, which will also scrutinize the work.
In the days after the collapse, city investigators said the inspector told contractors working on the property to remove bricks on the support beam, but not to install temporary supports first.
The cave-in could have easily turned deadly, with video footage showing people running from the intersection as debris rained onto the street.
Firefighters searched the massive mounds of rubble for any possible victims, but fortunately there was nobody under the debris.
Still, more than 40 families who lived in the building lost their homes, with many residents evacuated to a nearby school.
Koenigsberg’s firm inspected the building on Feb. 18, 2020, and recommended much-needed repairs to what it described as an “unsafe” structure that had “significant masonry damage throughout the facade.”
But the work was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Building Department records.
The most recent report found seven unsafe facade conditions, including deteriorating mortar and cracked bricks, Oddo said afterward.
Since the collapse, major repairs and subsequent inspections have let many of the displaced families move back in, Adams’ office said.
