George Washington Bridge approach building crack (NYC)

Forensic consult. Nine-foot crack in a nine-foot beam at the bottom of a 20-story building over the GWB approach into Manhattan. Bridge-style redundancy ("egg-crate construction") meant ten other beams held the building up; one or two approach lanes had to close. The tenants' "wanted to go get some of the crack" punchline preserved.

Why? You can tolerate a crack in a bridge. The bridge won't come falling down because we have a redundant structure — built sort of as an egg-crate construction. Lots of different ways to design bridges. I had a building in New York City — a nine-foot crack in a nine-foot beam at the bottom of the building. A 20-story building over the George Washington Bridge approach into Manhattan, in a pretty rough area of town. When I went there, there were all these little empty plastic capsules on the sidewalk. The building manager's office was bolted in about ten different bolts, big heavy bolts, like a prison door. I went in to look at this nine-foot crack in a nine-foot beam, but they had another ten beams holding the building up. So there's redundancy. They had to shut down one or two of the lanes on the approach into New York City, which is a problem. When the tenants heard about the crack in the basement, they wanted to go get some of the crack.