'It came out of nowhere': Witnesses describe South Side building collapse

Pittsburgh Police vehicles set up a South Side road block between E. 16th and E. 17th streets Friday afternoon to keep motorists off East Carson Street after a building partially collapsed Thursday night.

Pittsburgh Public Safety official said no injuries were reported although one firefighter was treated for glass in his eye.

Public safety spokeswoman Cara Cruz said the cause of the collapse is still under investigation. She said early reports suggested lightning may have struck the building, but she could not confirm that.

The upper floor of a two-story building in the 1600 block fell into the street around 8:30 p.m.

“It’s not safe to have cars coming through here, especially with another storm possibly on the way,” Pittsburgh Police Zone 3 Cmdr. John Fisher told reporters Friday at the site of the collapse. “More rains and moisture is only going to make that building more (unstable). It won’t be safe here until we can bring the building down in a controlled demolition.”

Yellow police tape kept pedestrians off the sidewalk in front of the building which housed an ice cream shop on the lower floor.

Workers from Massaro Restoration Service were to clean and secure the site. They waited for a small crane to arrive and pull down what’s left of the structure.

Initial reports indicated no one was inside when the collapse occurred. However, busker Holly Polk, 28, South Side, said she was standing in front of the Rex Theatre when she heard the noise of the nearby building collapsing.

“I thought it was a car accident. It came out of nowhere,” she said. “The ice cream shop started filling up with water and there was a girl who worked in there that was pounding on the window. My friends helped her get out.”

Eddie Barnard, 38, a bartender at Nakama Japanese Steakhouse across the street, said he saw the collapse.

“I looked up and saw a guy walking his dog,” said Barnard. “Then all of a sudden he was running and all you could see was dust shooting up.”

Carson St. between 16th and 17th Streets is now blocked off as officials wait to bring the building down as part of a controlled demolition. pic.twitter.com/c9sQtWNU56

— Paul Guggenheimer (@PGuggenheimer) August 13, 2021

Other business owners and managers expressed concerns about working in an area with so many older buildings.

“We’ve had a lot of strange stuff happening on the South Side,” said Raven Fleetwood who manages The Exchange on East Carson Street. “Something like this just adds to it.”

Regardless of the cause, the sight of another severely damaged structure in the historic area was heartbreaking for Pittsburgh City Councilman Bruce Kraus, whose district includes the South Side.

“Carson Street has the longest Victorian business district in the country,” said Kraus. “Anytime you have a damaged building on Carson Street it’s devastating. It’s like what happened to the building at 1100 (E. Carson) in February.”

Kraus was referring to a 160-year-old building that partially collapsed due to a fire. City officials were forced to take down the other half of the building as well.

“We’ve gone through this before and gotten through it and we’ll get through it this time too,” he said.