'Basketball Sized Chunks' Of Debris Fall From Ceiling At Barclays Subway Platform
June 13, 2019, 12:51 p.m.
'I had to run to avoid getting hit by chunks, the video shows after they smashed and fell apart.'
Debris rained down on the D/N/R subway platform at the Atlantic Avenue Barclays Center station on Wednesday, frightening straphangers as they avoided "basketball sized chunks of concrete." You can see video of the debris falling below, taken around 4 p.m. yesterday. "I had to run to avoid getting hit by chunks, the video shows after they smashed and fell apart," said uploader Vivian Toro.
Please be careful and warn family who use the Barclay/Atlantic station in Brooklyn, this falling concrete was on the D/N/R line. I had to run to avoid getting hit by chunks, the video shows after they smashed and fell apart, smh @MTA #mta @NYC #nyc pic.twitter.com/vBP8cCEG3T
— Vivian M. Toro (@VToro) June 12, 2019
This tweet, which was made around 9 a.m. Wednesday, suggests the debris may have been falling for quite some time before it was cleared:
The ceiling literally just CAME DOWN at the Atlantic Barclays Center R subway platform!!! I’m talking basketball sized chunks of concrete!!! THE MTA IS TRULY THRIVING IN THESE TRYING TIMES!!!! #mta #nyc #momoneymoproblems
— RAT BOI LIVES! (@ExaZim) June 12, 2019
MTA spokesperson Shams Tarek explained that the incident was caused by work being done by a non-MTA employee aboveground: "A non-MTA contractor taking soil samples aboveground punctured the ceiling of the station causing a small amount of plaster to fall onto the platform and track area," he said. "No one was injured, and Transit personnel responded immediately to cordon off the affected area, check it for safety, clean the debris and reopen it for public use. We've conferred with the contractor—who made immediate repairs—to make sure this doesn't happen to our station again."
On Thursday, straphangers weren't feeling much better about the potential safety hazard: "I feel kinda unsafe, you would think with being underground, things wouldn't be falling from the sky," said Isaac Auguste. "The fact that I didn't hear about that, it's unsettling." Anton Lagochniak, who was also passing through the station today, said he had heard about the debris yesterday: "It's just making me look out for myself and others now."
"That's ridiculous. How's that possible?" asked Mamoon Salfemi. "Now I'm wondering if that happens at other stations."
This isn't the first ceiling collapse to occur at the Atlantic Avenue Barclays station in the past year—last September, heavy debris rained onto a busy Manhattan-bound 4/5 platform there. Other ceiling collapses have ensnared other stations around the city in the last year as well, including the Borough Hall subway station in Brooklyn.
With additional reporting by Xavier Rubira.
