Businesses along Avenue T in Brooklyn start cleaning up aftermath of partial roof collapse
Dolly Rago, one of the owners of Dolly’s Ices, says they were serving customers Sunday evening when they started to hear cracks. That was when the wall along the edge of the roof came crashing down, taking bricks and store signs with it.
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The cleanup process began Monday for a strip of stores along Avenue T in Mill Basin after a portion of the roof collapsed this weekend, forcing them to shut down. News 12 learned the building was cited once before for a similar issue.
Dolly Rago, one of the owners of Dolly’s Ices, says they were serving customers Sunday evening when they started to hear cracks.
That was when the wall along the edge of the roof came crashing down, taking bricks and store signs with it.
Five other places were impacted, including a church, a clothing store and a laundromat.
Rago says the building inspector came to her shop Monday and they're still waiting for a structural engineer.
In 2011, the Department of Buildings says a complaint was made that read, "One side of the parapet wall is pulling away from the right side of the building and the wall is in danger of falling."
The DOB says Architectural Solutions was hired to handle inspections, but they never handed in a certificate of completion.
For now, Rago says she’s thankful no one was hurt, and that the community has expressed support.
“Everybody has been stopping, honking horns, [asking], ‘Do you need anything? Do you need a space for your freezers? Do you need a place to put your supplies?’ They wanted to come here and pick up the bricks for us,” Rago says. “Some people called and asked, ‘Are you having fundraisers?’ I mean the outcry from this community was absolutely beautiful.”
It’s not yet clear when the business can reopen. The owners say their focus for the moment is getting the debris cleared.
