Suzanne Cohen had just returned from a family vacation in England and was still unpacking her bags when she heard a loud thunderous noise.
Then, a shrill siren blared. She ran down the stairs. “It seemed like every cop and fire engine in New York was there,” she told the Post. They crowded the narrow streets of the Financial District.
Her family of five lived next door to the garage on Ann Street which collapsed just over a year ago.
They were evicted indefinitely from their home and their lives were turned upside down. Thankfully, all their possessions except for their car were intact.
“It’s hard to describe the feeling of having a building fall on you,” Suzanne says. Freelance Photographer He also runs a blog Gotham LoveSaid.
“Tough New Yorkers”
When the family moved to Fidi 12 years ago, the area was primarily a business district. Taxis were scarce, and weekend trains were scarce. With three growing children, the Pathfinder parked next door made it convenient for visiting relatives in the suburbs.
The family divided the 1,400-square-foot, one-bathroom loft space with makeshift walls. The daughters shared a room with bunk beds, and the teenage son had his own room, “the suburban equivalent of a closet,” Adam says. “It was cozy, to say the least, but we were tough New Yorkers.” Rent eventually came to $5,200.
Five people were injured in the collapse, including 59-year-old Willis Moore, the garage manager whose daughter, a New York Police Department officer, was pregnant at the time of the collapse.
“This is a man I knew,” Adam said. Pioneering Dad Blogger Known as Dada Rocks “We were joking around and talking about our kids,” said a dejected woman who works in marketing for a nonprofit.
An immediate eviction order was issued for the Cohens’ 12-unit building, forcing Suzanne and Adam, who are in their 40s, and their teenage children to leave.
The Red Cross, which helps people in the aftermath of disasters, offered to put them up in a remote hotel for two nights, “which wouldn’t have helped me get my kids to school the next day,” Adam said. (Red Cross assistance depends on individual circumstances, needs and resources, a spokesman told The Washington Post.)
The family was then able to go to a city evacuation centre.
Instead, they opted to stay in a downtown hotel for a few days before being holed up at a relative’s house in Westchester.
They left for school at 6 a.m. Adam took Mark, now 15, to high school, then drove Harper, 11, and Harlow, 8, to their schools downtown. “If we were five minutes late, we’d get stuck in traffic and miss the morning bell,” Adam said.
“Innuendo and Rumors”
When the school year ended, the kids went off to camp and the Cohens moved back to their downtown hotel, always being told they would be able to go home in two weeks.
“Nobody in any authority has said, ‘Here’s the actual timeline and plan,'” Adam said. “It’s all been innuendo and rumor.”
What was most frustrating, he said, was that his neighbours in the apartment across the hall were allowed to return home after two weeks.
The garage, which was completely destroyed, was an L-shaped structure with an apartment at the back “directly adjacent to the building that collapsed,” said Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman for the Department of Buildings, who later added that the cause of the collapse was still under investigation in cooperation with the Department of Buildings and police.
The eviction order was finally lifted seven months later, last November, after the DOB received an engineering report on the structural stability of the area behind the building.
Meanwhile, the Cohens were struggling and displaced: “We were eating takeout every night, paying for hotels, living like tourists,” Adam says. They had limited access to their possessions; one sad summer day, he had to pick up a suit for his mother’s funeral.
“Police officers were standing at the door and we had to ask them to come in,” he said. “Some said, ‘OK,’ some said, ‘It’s not my job,’ and some said, ‘Call someone from the fire department.'”
The family didn’t have renters insurance, but that wouldn’t have helped: Impending collapse or evictions aren’t typically covered, says CEO Celia Santana. Personal Risk Management Solutions.
“Most renters insurance policies only cover direct physical damage from things like fire and theft, and don’t cover additional living expenses that arise from loss of use due to excluded perils,” she said.
But the family car was soon replaced by insurance.
New Start
As the new school year approached, the Cohens knew they couldn’t wait any longer. “We had to pull the reins,” Adam said. Rental housing in the city was expensive and cramped, so they prepared to move to the suburbs, as some of their friends had done during the pandemic.
They zeroed in on Westfield, New Jersey, which was within walking distance, had good schools and an easy commute into the city. With listings scarce and competition fierce, they rented a home for $4,900 a month for a year and began looking for a permanent home.
Finally, they found it: a charming home built in 1902 with cloisters and Japanese maples. Inside, it’s 2,100 square feet, with four bedrooms, an attic, and two bathrooms. The seller’s family had owned the home for 50 years. The Cohens offered $975,000, below the asking price of $950,000.
The price dropped to $945,000 after an inspection revealed problems but not their extent — an old roof, rusty sewer pipes and knob-and-tube electrical wiring all needed replacing — and the Cohens closed on it in mid-April, nearly a year after the collapse.
They plan to live in their new home after their lease ends while the renovations are being carried out.
“I have a vision of what this house will look like when it’s finished,” Adam says, “and we’re just $100,000 away. We can put things in the book that we didn’t know a year ago.”
At the same time, they are remaking their lives as suburbanites.
The kids love having their own room and garden, but “what they love most is the big kitchen where they can come down and play,” says Suzanne.
The family previously ordered groceries online. Now they drive to Target. They buy a barbecue grill. They rake leaves. They get the now-necessary Halloween decorations.
For Adam, the hour-plus commute five days a week to his office near Columbus Circle is a drag, and NJTA is less reliable than he’d expected. On his worst days, it took him three hours to get home.
He said the continued uncertainty has been hard and there are no good solutions for a middle-class family of five who were suddenly forced to leave their home.
“There was no safety net. My wife noticed the cracks in my New York armor. It makes you wonder: how did the last few years of my life go so off track? There are so many emotions to unpack.”
Meanwhile, her daughters love their new school – her son will soon get his provisional acceptance letter – and they all agree that having more than one bathroom would be life-changing.
“Mostly it’s about keeping smiles on the kids’ faces,” Adam said.
