Floors collapse in Chinatown building under construction; one worker trapped

By adamg on Thu., 3/20/2014 - 8:05 am

Not supposed to see sky there. Photo by BFD.

An upper floor of the apartment building under construction behind Jacob Wirth on Stuart Street collapsed and fell several floors around 7:50 a.m.

One worker was trapped by steel beams and rebar on the fifth floor of 45 Stuart St. The Boston Fire Department extricated him, reports he suffered a serious head injury. A second worker suffered minor injuries.

Firefighters report two structural beams on the fifth floor show signs of major damage.

Stuart, Washington and Tremont streets were shut. OSHA is on the way.

The AVA Theater District is a $175-million, 398-unit project.

Neighborhoods:

Chinatown

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Comments

Pictures of crane

By downtown-anon
Thu, 03/20/2014 - 8:39am

Lots of pictures of a crane here:
http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php...

Hmm

By BostonUrbEx
Thu, 03/20/2014 - 9:12am

Is anybody else dumbfounded at how quickly this thing is going up? The core was only 5 stories less than 2 months ago and no steel had gone vertical. Now we're all of a sudden at 22-23 stories of concrete and 10 levels of steel? Impressive.

Based on this webcam of the

By jdrinboston
Thu, 03/20/2014 - 8:48am

Based on this webcam of the old Herald construction site, the crane seems to be intact. (The crane in question is in the upper left hand side of the picture - looking almost adjacent to the W Hotel)

http://oxblue.com/open/natdev/inkblock

My guess is that one of the floor plates of the level being worked on failed and fell through several floors below.

Doesn't sound like there are any serious injuries, which is very fortunate.

Post updated

By adamg
Thu, 03/20/2014 - 8:55am

Thanks.

Different webcam

By downtown-anon
Thu, 03/20/2014 - 10:15am

Got this from Reddit.

If you go back in time on view 2 you can see the damage happened between 7:48 and 8:02.
http://oxblue.com/open/avalonbay/45stuartst

Crane

By sbosbach
Thu, 03/20/2014 - 9:22am

Huh. Also drove by this on Tremont in the Theater District just as this must have happened, around 7:50. Streets weren't closed yet. Didn't hear anything, but there were cops running/driving the wrong way up Tremont. Nutty morning in Boston.

I hope to God a girder doesn

By Finn
Thu, 03/20/2014 - 4:21pm

I hope to God a girder doesn't come crashing down on Wirth's someday.