`The building was shaking'
Eastie accountant unscathed in collapse
An empty Maverick Square building partially collapsed yesterday — forcing out neighbors due to fears it would topple — and city officials are now making plans to demolish it.
Accountant Grace Magoon was putting in extra hours at her Maverick Street office because of tax season yesterday when the building began to shake.
“It sounded like an explosion,” Magoon told the Herald. “It kept going. I know the roof was hit because the entire building shook. Everything in the building was shaking.”
Authorities yesterday said the unoccupied, four-story brick building at 4 Winthrop St. in East Boston “partially collapsed.” Debris crashed down onto nearby businesses.
The unstable building continued to shift last night, forcing 28 people to leave abutting buildings due to the danger of a full collapse, investigators said.
The incident occurred about 12:18 p.m. near heavily congested Maverick Square. The building was undergoing renovations, authorities said.
“We’re very lucky and very fortunate that no one was hurt,” said Boston Fire Department Commissioner Joseph E. Finn. “A big portion of an exterior wall had collapsed onto an adjacent building . ... When the initial collapse occurred, there was a ruptured gas main. We had high concentrations of gas throughout the structure.”
Authorities were working into the night to secure a crane to stabilize the building because they planned to demolish it.
“The building is not stable enough to allow us to put people in the building to shore it up,” said Inspectional Services Commissioner William “Buddy” Christopher. “We’ve made the determination that we’re going to take the building down. We’re working out the logistics to make sure that takes place. Our goal is to get it done as quickly as we possibly can so that we get those other businesses and residents back to operation.”
Finn said, “There certainly is fear that the building could come down suddenly.”
Forensic inspectors would only be able to get into the building to get a sense of what caused the collapse when a crane could stabilize it, Christopher said.
There was no timeline for that, he added.
Danilo Avalon, 48, an attorney who owns two buildings on Maverick Street, including Magoon’s office, drove to the scene to see the damage himself and realized that debris had crashed through the roofs of his two buildings on Maverick Street.
He said because Magoon was working in the front of the building and not near the rear where the bathroom was, she escaped unscathed.
“Had she been in the bathroom, the debris that collapsed through our roof would have been on her. I was just stunned.”