One day after a man and woman fell four stories – he to his death and she critically injured – questions came up about why the Center City building was never re-inspected by the city.
Steven Lee and Jacklyn Seagrest fell early Sunday morning when a fire escape railing gave way.
Lee, 25, died instantly and Seagrest broke three ribs. The couple was standing on a fire tower balcony when the rail gave way. The bolts had been "pulled out of the wall" Scott Mulderig, Chief of Emergency Services for Licenses and Inspections, told the Philadelphia Daily News on Sunday. Then on Monday, L & I said it found severe structural issues in the fire tower.
The building at 16th and Spruce houses apartments, and on the ground floor is the popular eatery, Monk's Café. Inspectors also found that minor code violations from a 2008 inspection of the restaurant had not been fixed.
NBC10 Investigative reporter Lu Ann Cahn asked L & I commissioner, Fran Burn, "Is the owner negligent here?"
"Uh, to the extent that we have written unsafe violations against the property maintenance code, uh, there are, the building does have violations of the property maintenance code and Philadelphia code," Burn said.
"Why wasn't that enforced? Why wasn't the building re-inspected?" Cahn asked.
"We're looking at why it wasn't re-inspected," said Burn.
Inspectors said even if it they had gone back in to inspect, they probably would not have found the deteriorating rails and Burns stressed that the burden of upkeep is on property owners.
"We need to just be sure that owners understand, they're the front line. I mean they have a responsibility under the law to maintain their property."
A decade ago, the city did inspect buildings on a regular basis and the L & I commissioner said that program would start again.
