'It Looked Dangerous': Taam China Owner Warned Landlord Of Facade

BROOKLINE, MA — The owner of Taam China on Harvard Street, where the facade of the building crashed to the sidewalk early this morning, said he told the landlord this week that there were problems with the building. And owner Andy Chung thinks he knows why the facade of his restaurant came crashing down. Chug thinks the contractors his landlord sent to fix the top of the building recently may have inadvertently knocked something out of whack.

"I said it looked dangerous," said Andy Chung who opened the Glatt Kosher Chinese restaurant in 1997.

Chung said he'd informed the landlord about what appeared to be trouble on the edge of roof yesterday and the landlord sent over a crew to fix.

"The contractors did something," said Chung who speculated that because they pushed part of the facade above his restaurant back a bit where it had earlier appeared be falling, it disturbed the rest of the facade and that's what led to its collapse. (See the picture here)

He showed this reporter photos he'd taken and sent to the landlord to let them know he was concerned about the facade yesterday.

"The good news is the timing," he said. The building facade fell during a time of morning when few are out and about.

After 5 a.m. runners are often seen along the busy stretch of Harvard Ave. And folks frequent popular Kupels, which opens at 6 a.m. and the coffee shop across the street 4A by 7 a.m.

The building that also houses Kupels is owned by Diane and Allan Kupelnick who used to own Kupels Bakery until they sold it in 2007 after 28 years on the block to an employee. Patch was not immediately able to get in touch with them.

The Harvard Street partial building collapse comes about a month after a similar incident.

On Sept. 15 a three story apartment building at 68 Egmont built in 1925 was evacuated after the facade similarly came tumbling down onto the sidewalk below. In that incident there were also no injuries.

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Building Facade Collapses In Brookline

Brookline Partial Building Collapse: Residents Evacuated

Photos by Jenna Fisher/Patch