How often do buildings collapse in NYC? Here are some of the most recent ones.

A parking garage in Lower Manhattan partially collapsed on Tuesday, leaving one person dead. The incident adds to a recent history of several building collapses in the city within the last few years.

The roof of the three-story building at 57 Ann St., a nearly 100-year-old structure between Nassau and William streets, collapsed shortly after 4 p.m. It’s the first complaint at the building since 2014, according to building records.

While it’s unclear what exactly caused part of the building to come down, Brian Bramel, a Maryland-based structural engineer, said some reasons for an unsteady building could be that it’s “overloaded” or “degraded such that it’ll fail.”

“A concrete building in specific is really held up by the steel rebar that's in the concrete. So concrete can't take tension very well, the steel rebar actually takes the tension and holds everything together,” Bramel said. “And when the corrosion eats up the rebar then you no longer have this tension capacity and you've reduced the capacity such that the load of the cars now will cause the structure to fail.”

Bramel added that corrosion, fatigue and cracking of elements in a building could also lead to a collapse.

“It could have been that the building was under current construction and that they had intentionally weakened something to strengthen it at some other point,” Bramel said. “The investigation for something like this is generally going to take a fair piece for them to come in and figure out exactly what the cause was, and even then you'll probably never know the exact cause of it. You'll narrow it down to a few potential causes, but we rarely figure out the exact cause.”

Here are other recent building collapses around New York:

2023: A wall collapsed at a demolition site in SoHo in March

One construction worker died and three others were injured while working at a demolition site in SoHo on March 7.

A wall of the demolition site – located on the second floor of 126 Lafayette St. in Manhattan, collapsed. One worker, who had been trapped underneath the wall, later died at a hospital that same day. Three other workers were severely injured.

The fatality in March became the first known building construction death of the year, according to officials. The contractor of the site previously received several violations from the city for safety issues found during an inspection.

“It’s an unfortunate accident,” FDNY Chief of Department John Hodgens said. “And we are going to be investigating to see how this happened.”

2021: A man died after an elevator collapsed in a Bronx building

A construction worker died after an elevator collapsed on top of him at a construction site in the Bronx. Another man, who was inside the elevator at the time, sustained serious injuries.

The elevator collapse occurred at a building at 20 Bruckner Blvd. in the Bronx in May 2021. The building was instantly recognizable for a History Channel billboard on its roof.

The developers intended to turn the old property into a new branch of the DREAM charter schools.

2020: A brick wall fell on top of a construction worker in Sunset Park

A man died after a brick wall fell on top of him at a construction site in Sunset Park in 2020.

Another construction worker sustained serious injuries.

Both workers were trapped underneath a brick wall that collapsed at 454 42nd St. in Brooklyn, on Dec. 28, 2020. The wall, which measured 10 feet, fell on the workers. While one of the workers died at the scene, the other was rushed to a hospital.

The wall had been constructed in 2004, without the proper permits, according to building records.

“There might have been some work going on, we don’t have a handle on what type of work that was,” an FDNY spokesperson said at the time.

2020: A piece of scaffolding collapsed at a Murray Hill building

A man and three other workers were injured after scaffolding from a building in Murray Hill in Manhattan fell.

Mario Salas and his fellow construction workers were repairing an 11-story residential building at 136 East 36 St. Salas died while the others sustained injuries.

Salas’ “death is a tragedy and outrage but it was also, sadly, predictable,” Queens Councilmember Francisco Moya said in 2020.

2020: Building housing a commercial gym collapses in Carroll Gardens

A three-story property in Carroll Gardens collapsed in July 2020. No one was inside the building when the structure came down and left unlivable.

The city's buildings department was aware of the problems in the building prior the collapse, with the agency telling Gothamist then that the property owner was issued violations and fines for “cracks and bulges throughout the property.”

In a statement at the time, the owner of the gym – Body Elite Gym – described the sudden collapse as “overwhelming shock.”

“We are extremely grateful that the gym was closed due to COVID and no members were inside. Thank you everyone for all your support,” the statement read.

2019: A broken facade from a Midtown building killed an architect

A 60-year-old architect died on Dec. 17, 2019 after a facade made of terracotta fell and struck her. The debris belonged to a building at 729 Seventh Ave. in Manhattan. The building’s facade had been previously cited for violating repair requirements.

The architect’s husband filed a lawsuit against the building’s owners several months later.

“Owners receive minuscule fines that they are able to pay off as a way to avoid making actual repairs,” the family’s attorney told Gothamist in 2020. “This practice is an open secret in the New York real estate community.”

2019: A worker was crushed by debris from a construction site

A construction site at 94 East 208th St. in the Norwood neighborhood of the Bronx collapsed in August 2019. During the collapse, Segundo Manuel Herrera, who was working at the site at the time, was crushed by cinder blocks and sheet metal.

The collapse ultimately resulted in the arrest of three contractors who prosecutors said disregarded safety precautions – including forging insurance and lying to get permits – while allowing construction on the site. The contractors were charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark called the construction site “a death trap waiting to happen.”