BOSTON (WHDH) - City officials are working to determine whether a historic North End building that was the scene of a partial collapse late Friday night will have to be torn down.
Firefighters say the vacant building on North Street was under construction prior to the collapse. There were no reported injuries, but it left quite a mess.
Paul Demuth said he hopes the building will stay.
“These old buildings typify the North End,” he said. “They’re iconic, you hate to see any of them get torn down.”
Mike O’Brien, who witnessed the incident, said it all started with a rumble.
“All of a sudden I heard this rumble, it was like a rumble and then a bam, bam, and it was floors going down, I could see it from my roof,” O’Brien said. “Another big rumble and then it stopped, everyone came out to the street here to figure out what was going on and we saw there was dust everywhere.”
The building’s owner says he noticed it was not structurally sound Friday morning so he evacuated construction crews and less than 12 hours it collapsed.
“I mean this is the North End, Boston, so you want to have a certain brick feel, brick style to it,” Demuth said. “So hopefully they can make the new fit in with the old.”
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