OUT & ABOUT: The Day The Wall Fell Down (On My Trolley)

“Bloop!”

That’s the sound that my phone makes when I get a Facebook Instant Message.

I was on the 36 Trolley heading home from my teaching job in Southwest Philly when my phone went off. It was my friend Jimi from DC.

“You here?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Buildings are falling down in Philly. Wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

When the Salvation Army Thrift Store at 22^nd & Market Streets fell down thanks to a crane operator who swung at the building at exactly the wrong time, I got a lot of Facebook messages from friends around the country, asking me if I was okay.

I was. In fact, I was calling around trying to get some information on the collapse, listening to Mayor Michael Nutter as he gave his updates, and trying to figure out just what was going on above the trolley line.

Apparently, Sean Benschop, a crane operator working for contractor Griffin Campbell, decided that instead of using the crane to pick up the bricks of the building next door to the Salvation Army, he would instead use it to knock down the building next to the Salvation Army.

It turned out to be a bad idea. Six people were killed and 14 were injured in the process. And Benschop became the poster child for why you shouldn’t operate a crane while high on weed.

He’s facing manslaughter charges. The owner of the building, former Philly Porn King Richard Basciano, is looking at so many lawsuits that all of the lawyers filing them had their own “Investigation Day” last Sunday to take a look at the site.

And the City’s Licenses & Inspections Dept. is about to take it on the chin, which means the City is about to have to get some of that lawsuit love from the families of the dead and injured.

Because we’re a City that’s been practicing austerity for a while now, such things as inspecting building-construction projects have kind of gone by the wayside. Add that to the fact city workers haven’t had a contract for the entirety of Mayor Michael Nutter’s Administration and you have a recipe for, well, some weeded-out dude hitting a building with a crane, causing said building to fall down, kill six people and injure 14, and make a lot of commuters on the 36 trolley angry when they can’t get off at the 22^nd Street stop for a week.

District Attorney Seth Williams promises to leave no stone unturned (no, I’m not kidding, that’s what dude actually said) in his investigation of this tragedy.

This should be interesting….

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