Residents of a Bronx public housing complex say they smelled gas around the site of a partial building collapse in the hours and days leading up to the disaster that city officials are blaming on a boiler explosion.
The explosion around 8 a.m. Wednesday toppled bricks and left a 20-story tear along the side of the building at 205 Alexander Ave., where a chimney once stood. No one was injured, but tenants in apartments next to the collapsed section of the building will be displaced for at least the next two days.
Officials said they don’t yet know the exact cause of the explosion, but three tenants and the local city councilmember said some residents began noticing the smell of gas in recent months.
Construction worker Luis Nevarez, a resident of a neighboring building, said he smelled gas around midnight Wednesday, about eight hours before the explosion.
“There definitely were warning signs,” he said.
Wilfredo Melendez, an eighth-floor tenant in the building that partially collapsed, said he smelled gas for several months whenever he entered his building through a door near the boiler room.
“When you come out through this building, you smell a little bit,” Melendez said.
Fourth-floor tenant Dee English said the smell was “strong enough that it was obvious something was wrong.”
Councilmember Diana Ayala told Gothamist “there was some sort of gas smell” in the early hours before the explosion.
It was unclear Wednesday whether anyone had reported the gas smell. A review of 311 complaint records did not show any such complaints and a spokesperson for the FDNY said it had not received a complaint in the past two days. The city's website advises New Yorkers to call 911 and leave the area if they smell gas.
After the collapse, utility company Con Edison shut off gas service to the roughly 3,500-unit development, located in Mott Haven and constructed in 1966. Con Ed has been doing work on the gas system along the adjacent East 135th Street since July, according to a sign posted on a worksite outside the New York City Housing Authority complex, known as the Mitchel Houses.
ConEdison has been doing work on the gas system along the adjacent East 135th Street since July, according to a sign posted on a worksite outside the NYCHA complex.
NYCHA workers distributed hot plates to residents throughout the apartment buildings who will not be able to use their stoves or ovens until gas service is restored.
By late Wednesday evening, Nevarez said he had taken his family to his mother’s house because his building did not have hot water. English said she was deciding whether to stay with her sister or a friend.
NYCHA officials said the investigation into the collapse is ongoing. Spokesperson Barbara Brancaccio said the authority's heat management team was “conducting a routine safety check” Wednesday morning at the Mitchel Houses, but did not say whether their actions were believed to be related to the explosion.
The boiler was last inspected in June 2025, according to records from the city’s buildings department, Brancaccio said. The first day of October marks the start of the city’s heating season, when property owners are required to provide heat to tenants, but she said the boiler had been on throughout the summer because it also provides hot water.
Some residents at the Mitchell Houses said they smelled natural gas the day before a portion of a building collapsed on Wednesday.
While building records also show three open violations for the boiler, Brancaccio said the issues were “non-safety related defects from 2023.”
NYCHA is required to replace and fix 500 boilers by the end of 2026 as part of a sweeping 2019 federal monitorship agreement meant to improve conditions for public housing residents. The monitor’s most recent quarterly report, released in September, shows the authority “slightly behind” the replacement schedule.
At least one boiler at the Mitchel Houses revealed the need for new or renovated equipment. Gothamist entered the heating room in a neighboring building Wednesday and observed a corroded boiler, with chunks of insulation missing and rusted pipes leading to and from the machine. A handwritten log next to the equipment noted temperature and steam pressure readings taken as recently as Tuesday.
A boiler in an adjacent building in the complex to the one that suffered a partial collapse.
The partial building collapse also illustrates the challenges facing NYCHA and its aging infrastructure following decades of disinvestment by federal and state governments as well as mismanagement at the local level. The authority estimates it needs at least $78 billion to fully resolve its capital needs, including more than $600 million for the Mitchel Houses over the next five years.
Mayor Eric Adams said the incident highlights the importance of reporting the smell of gas as New Yorkers begin to use their boilers in colder weather.
“All of us should use this as a reminder that your boilers have been sitting idle all summer, so when you flip those switches … make sure you see if there’s the smell of gas,” he said. “Take the extra step of precaution.”
