Sunday marks three years since a building being demolished on Market Street in Center City crumbled, toppling onto a crowded Salvation Army thrift shop below it and crushing the people inside.
In all, six people -- Anne Bryan, 24, Roseline Conteh, 52, Borbor Davis, 68, Kimberly Finnegan, 35, Juanita Harmon, 75, and Mary Simpson, 24 -- died that day in June 2013. More than a dozen more suffered severe injuries.
In a statement released this weekend, ahead of the three-year anniversary, Nancy Winkler and Jay Bryan, whose daughter, Anne Bryan, died in the collapse, called it "a preventable tragedy that shook our community to its core." [[210250031, C]]
Winkler and Bryan, among others, are leading the charge to establish a memorial park at 22nd and Market streets, the site of the collapse.
They have also been vocal in calling for an overhaul of Licenses and Inspections and demolition practices that they believe contributed to the lax enforcement that led to the collapse.
"As we and the other families and loved ones continue to grieve -- a process that never ends -- we also remember and honor those who died, and the valiant first responders, as we work harder than ever to try to make sure that such a catastrophe can never happen again," Winkler and Bryan's statement read. "To that end, we continue to urge the community to support sound construction and demolition safety reforms to protect the public now, now after another disaster."
Sean Benschop, who was operating an excavator at the construction site the day of the collapse and later admitted to being high on marijuana at the time, is currently serving a 7.5- to 15-year sentence in prison for his involvement. Griffin Campbell, the contractor who hired Benschop and oversaw the demolition, is serving 15 to 30 years. Richard Basciano, the owner of the building that fell, never faced criminal charges in the collapse.
