A lower Manhattan building that until last year housed historic cheese shop Alleva Dairy partially collapsed during an illegal renovation on Wednesday, officials said.
Bricks came crashing down from one side of 188 Grand Street around 3:30 p.m., leaving a gaping hole in the four-story building that was the site of the famous cheese shop for over 130 years before it moved to New Jersey last March.
Nobody was hurt, fire officials said.
Inspectors from the Department of Buildings found that the building’s masonry chimney gave way, leading a mass of bricks to litter the ground.
A plywood construction fence surrounding the building was knocked over by the bricks, DOB officials said.
While at the scene, DOB officials discovered that the building was undergoing “unpermitted gut renovation work” on the first floor, which included the removal of the wooden floor joists
Con Edison shut off gas to the building and the street was blocked off as responders investigated. DOB officials said enforcement actions are pending the results of their investigation.
Alleva Dairy, which was a staple of Manhattan’s Little Italy for more than a century, closed its doors on Grant Street on March 1, 2022 and opened a new shop in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.
Owner Karen King, who purchased the business in 2014, said in a statement it’s a miracle that nobody was injured Wednesday.
“Like most people, I was shocked to learn about the collapse of the second floor at 188 Grand Street, the former home of my beloved Alleva Dairy, the oldest cheese shop in America,” King said.
“Typically, on any given day there would have been dozens of people in the store buying fresh mozzarella and cannolis,” she continued. “Thank God, no one was hurt, and everyone is safe.”
