The contractor hired to demolish the building at 2136-38 Market Street (photo) has a criminal record stemming from a phony car-wreck scheme with a Philadelphia police officer, according to court records. And his demolition work next to a Salvation Army thrift shop worried neighbors, workers, and others in the days before the recent fatal collapse, because an adjoining wall was left unsupported.Rico says this is yet another 'only in Philly' story; not only should they have evacuated the buildings on either side, this idiot never should have gotten the job in the first place... (And don't you think Basciano's grandchildren will be proud of the 'undisputed king of Times Square porn'?) But how come all these smart guys just knew something was wrong, but didn't think to call anyone about it? (All nominated for 'idiots for the day'...)
The demolition was being done by Griffin Campbell Construction of 1605 Butler Street. That North Philadelphia address is also the residence of Griffin T. Campbell, 49, who could not be reached for comment. Campbell has city permits to demolish six other properties, including three Market Street properties owned by STB Investments Corp., the owner of the collapsed building. The principal of STB is Richard Basciano, owner of many seedy properties and once dubbed "the undisputed king of Times Square porn".
According to court records, Campbell filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in March of 2013, listing $221,000 in liabilities, including $10,000 in unpaid city business taxes and delinquent state and federal taxes, as well as numerous bank liens on properties he owns in North Philadelphia.
Campbell's residence is a nondescript rowhouse in North Philadelphia. A woman who answered the door declined to comment and then locked the door. The home had a tidy porch with a tricycle and a broom on it. Neighbors also declined to talk.
Campbell pleaded guilty in April of 2009 to having filed a false insurance claim, claiming to be a passenger in a car involved in a 2005 auto collision that was actually a hoax to defraud an insurance company.
After filing the false claim, Campbell was paid $17,500 by Cambridge Insurance Co., plus $5,856 for medical bills. The scam unraveled when a Philadelphia officer, Deshane Riggins, admitted preparing "numerous fictitious accident reports" and identified Campbell's as one of them.
Police described the case as one of at least 45 phony auto accidents staged by Wallace "Pops" Morris of Kingsessing, the ringleader of the scam. Riggins, the officer who made the scam possible, was paid $400 to $500 for each false report corroborating an accident. He was fired in 2008 after pleading guilty to nineteen counts of insurance fraud.
The District Attorney's Office eventually reached a plea agreement with Campbell requiring him to plead guilty to insurance fraud and criminal conspiracy. He was put on probation for four years and required to pay $10,700 in restitution plus $490 in court costs. The deal was approved by then-Common Pleas Court Judge Joyce Eubanks.
Campbell also owns a property on Pike Street in North Philadelphia that the District Attorney's Office said in a court filing had been the site of extensive drug activity, prompting prosecutors to reach an agreement in which he consented to sell the property within six months. His deadline to sell passed in the Spring of 2012.
After the collapse, prosecutors checked their records and discovered that he had not yet sold it, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office said. "We are going to start the procedure to forfeit the property because he did not comply with the agreement he settled," spokeswoman Tasha Jamerson said. She declined to provide details on the alleged drug activity.
Campbell has had other run-ins with the law, including a 2007 arrest for aggravated assault in which he was charged with pushing and threatening a Philadelphia police officer. He was found not guilty in that case.
Regarding the collapsed building, Carlton Williams, commissioner of licenses and inspections, said there were "no existing violations on the property. It was permitted, and the contractor did have a license. The permits were valid and up to date," he said.
Mayor Nutter told reporters that it "is not unusual that demolition would be taking place next to" a building with residents or customers inside.
Nutter's press secretary, Mark McDonald, said Campbell had met requirements for demolition contractors, who are required to show proof of insurance and pay $300 for their permits. There are no criminal background checks, and Campbell's insurance-fraud conviction was irrelevant, McDonald said.
Although the Department of Licenses and Inspections issues demolition permits, McDonald said it is up to a federal agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, to oversee safety issues at demolition sites. OSHA spokeswoman Lenore Uddyback-Fortson said the agency was investigating the accident. She said OSHA is responsible for workplace safety, so "if there were any complaints or accidents, we would get involved".
The building in the deadly collapse is owned by Basciano, who has long owned much of two derelict blocks of Market Street. He sought to demolish the vacant building at 2136-38 Market in the hope of eventual redevelopment on the block.
A demolition permit for the work was issued in February to Plato Marinakos Jr., city records show. He could not be reached for comment. He was described in city records as an "expediter". Neither Basciano nor his business associate, Frank Cresci, answered phones at their New York City office at 303 West 42nd Street Realty. Basciano did not respond at his residence at Symphony House at Broad and Pine Streets in Center City, but an associate said he was "devastated" by the collapse.
Dean R. Phillips of Elliott Greenleaf in Blue Bell, lawyers for Basciano's firm, said: "At this point, like everyone else, we are just trying to get our arms around this terrible tragedy and determine exactly what happened. Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims and their families."
Near the collapse site, a local architect said it appeared that demolition crews had left a wall unsupported next to the Salvation Army thrift shop. Staffers at a nearby apartment house had watched with concern as workers tore down the vacant building. "I actually saw it and said it doesn't look safe," said architect Joseph Sulvetta, whose office is nearby. "A two-story wall looming over a one-story building doesn't look safe." He described the demolition work as "sketchy at best. ...I knew it wasn't the highest quality demolition crew ... but, once the permit went up, I assumed, wrongly, that L&I was at least monitoring" the project.
Dan Gillis, 31, a construction worker from Cinnaminson, was working on windows on the second story of a building directly across the street from where the structure was being demolished. He said he had seen workers ripping apart the building all week. Gillis said he did not see any bracing on the wall of the building that was being taken down. "It was freestanding," he said. "It was waving back and forth. And, boom! It went over on the people in the store." He said he had whipped out his phone and taken a photo of the weaving wall. Gillis said that, by the time he was able to get down from the high-reach boom where he had been working and get to the collapsed building to help, police and fire officials were on the scene and pushed him back.
Steve Cramer and his crew of union carpenters were installing windows in an apartment above a Trader Joe's grocery, across the street from the collapse site. They said they thought trouble was likely when they saw the crew using a machine to take down the building, which they said did not make sense for a structure of that size. "It's a total disregard for safety," Cramer said. "You've got to take it down small piece by small piece," said Cramer, of Carpenters Union Local 122. "Start at the top. Take the roof off.
"The wall that collapsed should have been braced," said Cramer, who also said he saw four people taken out of the Salvation Army store on stretchers.
Joe Hauser, a carpenter with Local 845 working with Cramer, was on a lift outside installing a window, and said he was thinking that at lunch time he'd go over and warn people to get out of the shop. The wall didn't hold long enough for him to do that.
"I feel horrible about it," said Hauser, of Collingdale. "What could I do other than watch?"
Brian Mullins, a construction worker who was working across the street, said he was suspicious of the way the demolition was being done. "They weren't doing it safe. They should have had cross support. The building was structurally unsound," Mullins said.
Scott Shuster, who owns the building at 2200 Market, works in construction and saw the frantic rescue effort. He said the building had been partially demolished earlier in the week, and when he walked by, something "didn't look right." He called it "a man-made disaster. I drove by it and looked at it. It didn't look right," he said. "You should leave support up for neighboring buildings. I didn't see any."
Robert Brehm, an associate teaching professor and professional engineer in Drexel University's department of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering, said it appeared that the wall of the four-story building collapsed outward, instead of inward as it was expected to. That caused the wall to fall on the smaller structure housing the store.
"I don't want to speculate too much, but that's what it appears from looking at the video," Brehm said. "Demolishing an old building is not neurosurgery. It's not done with the same level of precision or predictability. We're not going in with scalpels, and things don't always behave the way we think they're going to behave." His first question, he said, was "what procedures were in place to protect the surrounding environment?"
Basciano has owned much of the blocks of Market Street between 21st and 23rd Streets that were long home to now-closed porn sites such as the Forum Theater and Les Gals peep show. Basciano, 87, was a close friend and business associate of the longtime Philadelphia slumlord Sam Rappaport, and served for a time as executor of his estate. The Market Street properties were acquired by Basciano from Herman Benn, owner of the old Nate Ben's Reliable store.
An Inquirer report last year on Basciano and his holdings said he was seeking the city's help in acquiring the remainder of the block to make it more appealing for redevelopment. The city said it was not interested in selling a firehouse in the middle of the block.
In another article at Philly.com, they ask Rico's same questions:
At 10:43 am yesterday, a little bit of Bangladesh came to Philadelphia. The scale of the carnage at 22nd and Market wasn't nearly the same. But it appears the blatant disregard for safety and the well-being of people inside the Salvation Army thrift shop sounds eerily reminiscent of the Rana Plaza garment factory.Rico says it's yet another Philadelphia's-famous-for-'em fuque de clusteur...
The owner of the Bangladeshi factory attempted to escape the country, only to be arrested and forced to do a perp walk. Meanwhile, here, only time will tell what happens with the callous ineptitude exhibited by Griffin Campbell Construction.
Nothing about the deadly demolition of a blighted four-story building at the edge of downtown looked right. That's what the people who had watched it in the days and weeks before the collapse told me. In fact, everyone I spoke with said something seemed off: way off.
Everyone, apparently, except the city that issued a demolition permit for a building owned by infamous king of porn and serial slumlord Richard Basciano. The permit was issued to Philadelphia architect Plato Marinakos for Griffin Campbell Construction, led by a demolition boss who, in addition to a criminal record, also has a history of violations on other properties he's worked on.
Despite obvious red flags, the city is claiming everything was on the up and up, the demolition company had proper permits, the workers were certified, blah, blah, blah.
But I wonder how workers can be vetted when permits are issued through a middleman? And I wonder what, if any, oversight the project had? And I wonder if anyone from L&I ever inspected the site?
If anyone was monitoring the site, neighbors and construction workers said they missed some obvious signs of trouble:Workers weren't wearing hard hats.Joe Hauser, a carpenter with Local 845 and a member of the crew working across the street, said he and his co-workers had watched the demolition for days in total disbelief.
They were trying to tear down the building in the dark with sledgehammers and flashlights.
Union carpenters working nearby said the wall that eventually collapsed wasn't braced properly. The demo was so screwed up, they said, they were literally waiting for the building to collapse. And it did, apparently killing six people and hurting 13 others who had to be rescued from the rubble.
One day there was a guy out there with a sledgehammer, he said. "A fucking sledgehammer," one of Hauser's co-workers echoed, as they stood on a nearby corner watching the chaotic rescue scene unfold.
"Never in all my years have I ever, ever, ever seen this," said Steve Cramer, a member of Carpenter's Local Union 122. "It was just a total disregard for safety. We predicted this last week. I can't believe they allowed the thrift store to be open."
Yesterday morning, Hauser said, he decided he had seen enough.
"I said: 'That's it, at lunch I'm going to go over there and say something, I have to, I can't go with this no more.'" He didn't get a chance.
Cramer said the collapse was "terrifying. I screamed. I was almost in tears," he said.
Another worker, Dan Gillis, captured the collapse on his cellphone. Gillis, a former Marine, said for a moment he flashed back to 9/11.
When they ran downstairs, they said they saw a woman who worked at the thrift store covered in dust and soot.
"Those poor people in the thrift store," Hauser said, watching officers carrying stretchers toward the building. "They're just in there trying to get by. I just feel really bad that I didn't say something in time."
From the crowd, two women who worked nearby and had been listening to the men talk, shook their heads. "So why didn't you say anything?" one woman asked softly.
Why didn't anyone?
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