posted 12-08-2003 11:30 AM                       

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TORONTO (Reuters) - Several people, some of them children, were feared trapped when a disused movie theatre in Toronto collapsed and damaged nearby buildings.

Live television footage on Monday showed clouds of dust or smoke above the building in the heart of Toronto's downtown.

The building, which showed its last film during this year's Toronto International Film Festival, had been closed in September for demolition.

The theatre opened in 1920 as a movie theatre and live stage show theatre. It was damaged by fire in 1960, and developers plan condominiums on the site.

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posted 12-08-2003 11:58 AM                    

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Emergency services are attempting to rescue people trapped in the rubble of the Uptown Theatre.

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Live television footage on Monday showed clouds of dust or smoke above the building in the heart of Toronto's downtown.

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posted 12-08-2003 01:15 PM                       

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Toronto theatre collapses, one dead
Last Updated Mon, 08 Dec 2003 18:25:28

TORONTO - One man was killed on Monday when a downtown Toronto theatre collapsed onto a neighbouring private school. By late afternoon, one person was still missing.

INDEPTH: Theatre collapse

A man rescued from the Uptown Theatre in Toronto is put into an ambulance

A paramedic prepares an accident victim for transport to hospital
Photo: CBC News Online.

The theatre prior to the collapse.
Photo: Alan Macek. (December 5, 2003)

Uptown Theatre after collapse
Photo: CBC News Online
Emergency crews in Toronto were digging through the rubble to free the person, Toronto fire Chief Bill Stewart said. He said the condition of the person is unknown.

At least 14 people, including children and some demolition workers at the theatre, were taken to hospitals, mostly with minor injuries.

Stewart said a 10-year-old child had been taken to Sick Children's hospital. He had been on the second storey, but was found "below the second floor level," Stewart said.

A wall of the Uptown Theatre, which was in the process of being demolished, fell onto the neighbouring Yorkville English Academy. Some of the injured were students at the academy, a school that teaches English as a second language.

Emergency crews are moving rubble by hand, and police search dogs have twice gone through the building looking for survivors.

"It's going to be very painstaking, it's going to take an enormous amount of time," said Stewart.

Officials have put in place a no-fly zone within two kilometres of the scene. Fantino said that would help some of the equipment searchers are using to listen for survivors.

The school was one of several nearby buildings damaged in the collapse at about 10:35 a.m. ET.

Fire and rescue crews rushed to the scene near the busy Yonge-Bloor intersection, and closed Bloor Street between Yonge and Bay streets.

Tow trucks took parked cars away from the area to make room for emergency vehicles, and workers shut down gas in the area. The collapse did not affect subway lines under the structure.

The theatre was built in 1920 and served as a venue for movies and live shows.

Written by CBC News Online staff

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posted 12-08-2003 02:11 PM                       

Real Player - Global News Video Coverage

Real Player - Global News Video Coverage Follow Up

Stolen from CinemaTour:



http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=546F50CE-5FB0-4E57-9570-8A740D45443D

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Toronto theatre collapses, 1 dead
'The whole damned thing came down like a ton of bricks'


canada.com with files from Canadian Press

Monday, December 08, 2003
ADVERTISEMENT



TORONTO -- One person is confirmed dead and at least one other person is still trapped under a heap of rubble after a wall from a downtown theatre in the midst of being demolished collapsed onto their school.

The person, who has only been identified as an adult man -- was pronounced dead at the scene.

Rescue crews had someone "in sight'' amid the debris and were working to free the person, said Bruce Farr of the city's Emergency Medical Service. It wasn't immediately clear if that person was a child or an adult and whether they were able to communicate with rescue crews.

Emergency crews were confronted with a heap of rubble just after 10:30 a.m. around the Uptown Theatre at Yonge and Bloor Streets, a city landmark located at one of the city's best-known intersections.

The Yorkville English Academy normally teaches English as a second language to young adults, but John Harrington, a teacher at the school, said there were three children there on Monday -- one eight years old, another 10 and the third, 11.

"A piece of the wall from the theatre that they are demolishing fell through. It was a pretty tall wall. It fell through the length of the building," Harrington said.

Toronto Fire Chief Bill Stewart said the 10-year-old was transported to hospital.

A total of 14 people were taken to hospital with varying degrees of injuries, some minor and some more serious, Farr said.

"One of the children has crushing injuries to the lower limbs,'' he said.

At least one person is still trapped inside the building, Stewart said.

"It's a four-alarm situation," said Stewart, who compared the destruction to the piles of rubble caused by the Oklahoma City bombing and the World Trade Center collapse.

National Post reporter Peter Kuitenbrouwer was live on the scene and told canada.com that at least 100 firefighters, as well as EMS and Heavy Urban Search and Rescue (HUSAR) units, were searching through the rubble by hand as the building was too unstable for emergency workers to use heavy machinery.

"With the amount of debris in the structure, it's going to be very painstaking. It's going to take an immense amount of time to get into the rubble to ensure there are no more collapses," Stewart said.

Eyewitness Harry Lesik said workers were using a demolition crane to cut steel girders from the theatre when the collapse occured.

"The whole damned thing came down like a ton of bricks," he said. "There was a huge cloud of white dust. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face."

Gord Newton, who was walking nearby, said he heard a rumbling sound and then heard people screaming.

"I saw one guy running up the street and he had a cut above his eye. Then within a minute, the police were here," Newton told Kuitenbrouwer.

Helen Wanger, whose daughter Kate had been in the building, said her daughter walked out of the school with only a bump on her head.

"She was in there, she called me right after it happened saying that the roof collapsed,'' said Wanger.

"I told her get under a table, protect your head . . . we live up north, we just got in the car and came down.''

Philip Evans, who was working in a building about a block away from the site, compared the sound of the collapse to the loud rumble of an earthquake.

"We felt a large rumble and shaking and at first we really didn't think it was anything,'' said Evans. "It was like a subway moving underneath that building.''

Mayor David Miller was at the scene Monday. He said the demolition of the Uptown would be reviewed and the cause of the collapse would be investigated.

Kyle Rae, a Toronto councillor, said the owner of the theatre told him Sunday that he was bothered by how the demolition of the seven-storey building was proceeding.

"The owner of the building was concerned, but I don't know what the nature of his concern was,'' Rae said.

He also said that occupants of the neighbouring buildings should have had a better idea of what was going on at the theatre.

"There should have been some notice given to (the school), although (the building) has been coming down for 10 days,'' Rae said.

"Something should have been co-ordinated between the two."

Rae promised a "lengthy investigation into what went wrong."

Rob Ashley, an Ontario Labour Ministry spokesman, said an investigation had begun under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

"We have inspectors on scene -- a construction-site inspector and an engineer,'' said Ashley.

"Any time there's an incident in the workplace, we're there to investigate.''

The Uptown Theatre opened in 1920 as a movie theatre and a live stage show venue, but was in the midst of being torn down.

In May, Famous Players sold the building for $10 million to Piagga Ltd., a developer with plans to build a 50-storey condo tower on the site.

The Uptown was one of three Toronto theatres that closed down recently in a battle over wheelchair access.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission ordered Famous Players to make the three theatres fully accessible but the company decided to shut them down instead.

© Copyright 2003 canada.com

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Dec. 8, 2003. 02:13 PM

RICK MADONIK/TORONTO STAR



The Uptown Theatre, shown in August of this year, was once one of Toronto's great cinemas. It had been slated for demolition following this past Toronto International Film Festival.


One killed as Uptown collapses

CURTIS RUSH
STAFF REPORTER THESTAR.COM

The rear portion of the old Uptown Theatre in downtown Toronto collapsed this morning, caving in the roof of an adjacent building, killing one person and trapping others in the rubble.
According to Toronto Fire Chief Bill Stewart, 14 people have been pulled from the rubble and sent to hospital for treatment. One other person is still trapped.

Police say only that the deceased is an adult male who was confirmed dead on the scene.

Stewart described the operation to locate and rescue the trapped people as “painstaking,” saying he feared that any precipitous action might cause a second collapse.

Tracking dogs are scouring the scene, searching for the person believed to be trapped in the rubble. Police report the dogs have had two “hits,” meaning the dogs may have detected two different people, one inside the building and one inside the lane beside the theatre.

Yonge is closed between Charles St. and Bloor St., because officials fear other buildings may have been damaged by the collapse of the theatre.

Meanwhile, a local resident says she called the police two weeks ago when she heard demolition work being done in the middle of the night. Brenda Freed, who lives in a nearby Charles St. apartment, says the noise started at 3:30 one morning. She says she called the police, who informed the demolition team that they could not begin work until 7 a.m.

The collapse happened at 10:30 this morning, while crews from Priestly Demolition were working on tearing down the shuttered Toronto landmark.

"The rear of portion of the old Uptown Theatre in downtown Toronto collapsed this morning, caving in the roof of an adjacent building," Stewart said.

The affected building is 13 Balmuto St., directly south of the Uptown Theatre.

“A piece of the wall from the theatre they were demolishing fell through the length of the building," said John Harrington, a teacher at Yorkville English Academy. Several students from the school are feared injured and/or trapped.

Employees and residents in nearby buildings have been told to evacuate because of fears of a gas leak. The smell of gas is distinct in the area around the collapse and Enbridge Gas is on scene investigating.

Mayor David Miller arrived on the scene shortly before noon. He said that the Uptown's demolition would be reviewed and that the cause of the collapse would be probed.

According to Harrington, many of the students and teachers at the school were on break at the time of the collapse.

But some students remained behind to work at the school's computers.

"Some people were sitting in front of the computers … they got the brunt of it," Harrington said.

There were at least three children attending classes at the time, ages 8, 10 and 11, according to Harrington. An unknown number of adults were also attending ESL classes at the school.

"I thought the building was blowing up," Isa Ho, manager of the ScotiaBank branch just north of the theatre on the corner of Balmuto and Bloor St. W., said of the collapse.

One of the employees at the bank was hurt when a portion of the second-floor ceiling collapsed, according to Ho.

Many surrounding streets, including Bloor St. between Bay and Yonge, have been closed.

The Uptown Theatre first opened in 1920 and quickly became a city landmark.

In May, Famous Players sold the building for $10 million to Piagga Ltd., a developer that plans to put up a 50-storey condo tower on the site. The Uptown was one of three old theatres closed in recent months in a battle over wheelchair access.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission ordered Famous Players to make the Uptown, the Eglinton and the Plaza fully accessible but the company decided to close the theatres instead.

The Star's Martin Knelman reported that the Uptown was one of the few theatres actually owned by Famous Players, which mostly leases the facilities.

Famous Players has announced that it will replace the Uptown with a 10-screen movie centre across the street, which will be part of a condo-plus-retail complex at 1 Bloor St. E. planned by the development company Nastapoka.

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posted 12-08-2003 03:36 PM                       

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Leo, how come you're almost always the first here to report news from far-away places, long before those who live there? About the only exception I can think of was the Staten Island ferry crash, and that was reported by me, equally far away.

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posted 12-09-2003 11:44 AM                       

But there was something wrong with it, it wasn't fully accessible.

Not only is Younge Street one of the busiest in North America, it's the longest in the world at 1,896 km (1,178 miles).

http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=11F625D8-4C37-494B-A650-668BB7887012

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One killed, 14 injured as Toronto theatre collapses
DEMOLITION I Building fell on to neighbouring school

Allan Woods
CanWest News Service


TORONTO -- The Uptown Theatre demolition was a risky operation due to the building's age and unusual structure, but the deadly collapse was likely avoidable, architects and engineers said Monday.

A key witness to the collapse of the Uptown, which dates back to the 1920s, said he watched a crane operator cutting beams that ran along the roof of the building with metal cutters.

"He cut little pieces first and then he cut a big steel beam from the roof and when he cut that one, then the whole damn thing came down like a tonne of bricks," said Harry Lesik, 65, who was outside the Manulife Centre. "There was very thick white dust everywhere. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face."

The theatre's outer wall fell away from the building and onto a neighbouring school.

University of Toronto engineering Prof. Jeffrey Packer said the cut beams likely left the four perimeter walls with little or no support.

According to standard design, one wall is stabilized by a network of steel or concrete beams running across the roof which, in turn, is connected to other walls and hold them in place.

"You have to be careful because everything is tied to everything else," Prof. Packer said.

An unintended nudge with the heavy machinery would be the only thing needed to push the wall over, he said.

One architect, who asked that his identity not be revealed, noted that the high-ceiling theatre is an unusual structure because the roof is the only thing holding the walls in place.

The walls of office or apartment buildings, in contrast, are supported with separate floors every 10 feet, making it a much more stable structure to tear apart.

The architect added that little is known about the structural history, including upgrades or renovations, of older buildings like the Uptown.

It opened in 1920, showing movies and live stage shows. A fire gutted the main auditorium in 1960. It was repaired and in 1969 was split into a five-screen multiplex: two in the back, two on the main level and one in the balcony.

The theatre was closed and demolition began after this year's Toronto International Film Festival in September. Developer Marco Muzzo plans to build a 50-storey condominium tower on the land.

Because of the storied history of the theatre, the architect said there may have been little accurate information about structural changes made over the years.

For example, there may have been beams removed when the building was divided into five smaller cinemas. Other beams may have been removed, weakening the structure, while owners installed heating and air conditioning systems.

"No one has a real clear understanding of what took place in the last 20 or 30 years," the architect said.

All these questions will be left to investigators with Ontario's ministry of labour.

A construction site investigator and a specialty engineer assigned to the case had already started that probe yesterday.

Prof. Packer said they will look for evidence and eyewitnesses who watched or that may have contributed to the collapse.

"It might be that, in hindsight, this was predictable," Prof. Packer said.

One question they will most certainly have is whether supporting beams were cut away without stabilizing the walls to reduce the risk of them falling on neighbouring buildings, he said.

Rob Ashley, a spokesman with the ministry of labour, said an investigation can take up to one year to complete.

The work was being done by Priestly Demolition; no representatives of the company would comment yesterday.

© Copyright 2003 Vancouver Sun

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