City officials in charge of public buildings said they were investigating to see what went wrong, and Department of Buildings Commissioner James Oddo said he believed work was being done on the boiler.
NEW YORK (AP) - A massive brick chimney running 20 stories up the side of a New York City apartment building collapsed after an explosion Wednesday, sending tons of debris plummeting to the ground.
The falling bricks buried a sidewalk, landed on the playground of the public housing building and sent a cloud of dust billowing over the block in the Bronx, but amazingly did not injure anyone.
“We avoided a major disaster here,” said Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson at a news conference.
Mayor Eric Adams confirmed no injuries or deaths were reported in the collapse of the chimney, which rose up the side of the building from the boiler room. Authorities learned of an explosion just after 8 a.m. and were trying to determine if there had been a gas leak.