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Wall collapse at Yonge & Gould

Posted by Jerrold Litwinenko / April 16, 2010

18 Comments

wall collapse salad kingA wall collapse has occurred at Yonge & Gould, right between popular Thai restaurant Salad King and Tatami Sushi restaurant near Ryerson University. Just after noon today, the building began to gradually come apart before a significant section came down.

Emergency crews are on the scene, the area has been evacuated, and it's not yet been confirmed whether or not anyone has been injured or trapped by the falling debris (thermal imaging has been done but results aren't yet confirmed). A pile of rubble including bricks and metal spans a large section of sidewalk on Gould.

More photos are below and more info will be provided as it arrives.

Before:
wall collapse yonge gould

After:
salad king collapsesalad king wallwall collapse toronto

Lead photo via CityNews' Twitpic, and before image via Google Street View. Additional photos by blogTO's Jennifer Tse, and tapesonthefloor on Flickr. Video via CityNews embed.

Discussion

18 Comments

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J.Rai / April 16, 2010 at 01:59 pm
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FAKE. By which I mean the windows. If it came down gradually hopefully people would have noticed and dodged.
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Wes Bos / April 16, 2010 at 02:01 pm
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Glad no one was hurt. Did they say what caused it? Make you think about all these old toronto buildings, how many are unsafe like this one?
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Steve / April 16, 2010 at 02:15 pm
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Crazy. Looking at the drywall and studs, it appears it was recently renovated. I wonder if they pushed the wall too hard when doing the renovation, compromising the structure.

It makes me think twice about projects involving drastic renovation of old buildings, which is sooo common is Toronto. You have to be careful to preserve the strength of the original building.
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Josh replying to a comment from Wes Bos / April 16, 2010 at 02:19 pm
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Well, since they very rarely fall down, we can probably assume that for the most part they're pretty same.
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Torontonian / April 16, 2010 at 02:24 pm
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A building on Yonge Street had a similar thing happen several years ago. Water got in past the bricks and with freeze/thaw cycles caused the brickwork to bulge out and come crashing down to the Granby Street alignment. The end walls got new bricks and the east/west walls were repointed. The contractor hadn't used a medium betwen the poured concrete wall and the exterior brick wall. That little "economy measure" from the 1970s cost the Toronto Housing a huge amount of money.

What the freeze/thaw cycle does in creating potholes, it will also do in causing brick walls to separate and burst out onto the land below.
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Adam / April 16, 2010 at 02:26 pm
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inside job
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ReplyGuy replying to a comment from J.Rai / April 16, 2010 at 02:30 pm
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HILARIOUS! Those windows were totally fake.
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HUK / April 16, 2010 at 03:24 pm
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LEFT WING KNEE JERK BLOGTO HURRRRRRR
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amanda / April 16, 2010 at 03:49 pm
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Does anyone else find the photo where the billboard in the background is a model with a look of shock on her face comedic?

Initially there were reports of an entire floor collapsing, and people being trapped--was this all heresay then? (Obviously I hope it was, and that no one was hurt.)
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JJ / April 16, 2010 at 04:47 pm
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Brick is a non structural veneer. Putting too much pressure on the wall has nothing to do with it falling down. This failure is either due to the ties that hold the brick to the wall or the lintel underneath that supports it. Brick walls are permeable and are build with an airspace and weep holes at the bottom to allow for moisture to escape the wall. Unless the building was really old or improperly buit, ice has nothing to do with it either.
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W. K. Lis / April 16, 2010 at 04:49 pm
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Rat trap #7832, test complete. Result: unsatisfactory, scratches bicycles.
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Sinn / April 16, 2010 at 07:39 pm
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clearly the wall was so distraught with the fact that not only were the chess boards and merchant stands ripped out but then they had the remove Sam The Record Man... it just couldn't hold it in anymore...... i miss those days too....
*tear*.
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Sean / April 16, 2010 at 09:34 pm
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I will never eat sushi again! :-)
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Josh / April 16, 2010 at 10:38 pm
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I wonder if this has anything to do with the Sam the Record man and Ryerson construction, they're moving some serious dirt around and may've rocked the foundation of the sushi place and shook a few bricks loose where the sign was hanging
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Mayweather vs Mosley / April 17, 2010 at 03:42 am
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I just hope no one is hurt with this incident.
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Jack / April 17, 2010 at 07:31 am
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This kind of thing was mentioned on TorontoNews24.com last week about our building getting old in the downtown area. Here's the link to the story. We need these buildings inspected.

http://bit.ly/czku72
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Sam / April 19, 2010 at 01:23 pm
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The windows are not fake by the looks of it. Just had lunch at SaladKing 2 days before the wall came down. Their 2nd floor windows (which look the same) were fully operational. You can clearly see that the interior behind the the falling brick vaneer has new framing made with metal versus wood 2x4's. Whoever did the reno must of not like the view of the street :P and built a wall over them.
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Tom / April 19, 2010 at 02:09 pm
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It appears that the ground floor renovation and the sign band removed the support. There is no shelf angle support for the brick on the second floor.
Where are the engineers or building officials. Did that renovation get a permit? City says they have no responsibility. Of course the City does if they issued a permit and did inspections.
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