Residents left homeless by Manhattan garage collapse seek answers

LOWER MANHATTAN - It’s been nine days since a parking garage collapsed in Lower Manhattan. The city is working to gut the defunct building, but residents who live around the block aren’t seeing any progress and are feeling a lot of pain. 

"We still don’t have access to the car," said Adam Cohen, a displaced resident. "And as far as I know, the car is still dangling there as of the other day."

Cohen, his wife and three kids under the age of 14, have no car and no home and no idea when they’ll get one. Their home was next to the parking garage at 57 Ann in Lower Manhattan, that collapsed last Tuesday. So now the family of five is staying with grandpa in Scarsdale.

"This is crashing with the parents," Cohen said, "which you know, as a grown adult it’s not advisable."

The fallout from the parking garage suddenly pancaking is affecting residents who were forced to vacate their apartments while crews clean out the debris. Some of that debris includes cars, including the Cohen’s, who were told by the city it’s a total loss. So everyday they borrow a car, drive back down to the city, drop the kids off at school, go to work and do it again.

"There’s no date or communications or plan about like how long this will be, when we get to go home, when do we get to enjoy all of our stuff as opposed to what you can fit in a bag in the 15 minutes with a cop outside the door," said Cohen.

Pace University is settling in for the long haul announcing it’s going to be canceling all the classes in its William Street building for the rest of the semester. It shares a wall with a collapsed parking garage, and it says the loud noise, the vibration, and physical obstruction, it just makes learning too much of a challenge.

"A lot of the studios and the painting drawing classes, they exist in these buildings and acting classes," said Toby Parks, a Pace University student. "It’s a lot of the more hands-on kind of work that is harder to take place over Zoom."

FOX 5 NY reached out the Department of Buildings to get an update on the demolition, but did not hear back in time for this report. 

RELATED: Dozens of NYC parking garages in need of ‘immediate attention’

As crews work, displaced residents are bleeding cash but are being told May rent is still due on the first. Those with renters insurance only have less than a week of hotels covered, and the Red Cross, Cohen says, "they’ll only provide you shelter for two days."

"For me, I’m trying to stay positive" Cohen said. "I have friends and family and I know I’m lucky and blessed by that, but I also know that some of my neighbors don’t. There are definitely people that are not doing ok in this situation."