Get out while you can!

From the Queens Chronicle:

Two weeks ago, a worried construction manager hurried a reporter and a frustrated building superintendent out of a vacated fifth-floor apartment because of newly formed cracks threatening the structural integrity of the structure’s facade.

While 19 tenants still don’t know when they can return to their residences, work has begun to shore up the fracture-laden apartment building at 94-01 64 Road in Rego Park damaged by excavation work at the next-door lot.

Emergency external shoring work was approved by the Department of Buildings last Thursday for the cracking structure, temporarily easing the worries over whether at least part of the building could collapse in the coming weeks.

“The bottom line is that work has started,” Mike Santoro, Samson Management’s director of construction management, said. “But we have to continue monitoring what they are doing.”

Booth Holdings LLC, the owner of the excavation site in question, has been tasked with installing the external bracing and shoring on the neighboring building.

While Santoro is pleased that work has begun to save the cracking structure, he has his suspicions over Booth Holdings’ ability to properly secure the building.

By Feb. 26, the cracks were getting to be so bad that a resident called 911. After the FDNY and the DOB surveyed the building, it was determined that six apartments, including that of the building’s superintendent, were unsafe to occupy.

Since the partial vacate order was issued, the cracks have seemingly gotten worse, spreading to the roof of the building and getting large enough for daylight to stream through the concrete in the basement.