NEW YORK– A box truck crashed into a New York City sidewalk shed Monday morning, injuring three people.
It happened around 8:17 a.m. in Chelsea, on West 29th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues.
The New City Fire Department says a truck that drove out of its space caused the collapse and drove into the adjacent warehouse.
One person was seriously injured and two other people were seriously injured. All of the injured victims, a 21-year-old man, a 20-year-old man and a 30-year-old man, were taken to Bellevue Hospital and are expected to survive.
The 62-year-old driver of the box truck remained at the scene. He tried to help the victims and is devastated by what happened.
There was a major emergency response with 12 FDNY units and 60 members responding to the scene.
Department of Building (DOB) officials said the collapsed sidewalk shed is associated with 231 West 29th Street. They say the owners had an active permit to legally install a sidewalk shed.
The DOB issued an administrative violation to the property owners to repair their shed, but said they had done nothing wrong.
Sidewalk sheds line almost every street in the city and some stick around for years. Councilman Eric Bochner hopes the city passes legislation to limit the length of their stay.
“There’s no reason why New York City should have almost 400 miles of sidewalk covered with these sidewalk sheds. You don’t see them to this extent in any other city,” Bochner said. “So we have a package of legislation before the City Council that we hope to get passed in the near future.”
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