Almeida and the New Haven Fire Department rescue company he oversees faced that challenge on Friday afternoon after an apartment building under construction on Lafayette Street partially collapsed. They moved fast, but carefully, amid danger to themselves to save the life of a laborer for an Orange-based company called Seven Concrete while helping to build the sixth new apartment complex rising on a former Urban Renewal-leveled asphalt stretch of the Hill neighborhood. They didn’t know much about the call they were responding to as Rivera steered toward the partial collapse at 188 Lafayette St., in the heart of the “Hill-to-Downtown” redevelopment area where builder Randy Salvatore has been erecting a mini-city of medical district-marketed apartment complexes under the banner of “City Crossing.” This latest building is slated to rise seven-stories with 112 apartments. Seven Concrete workers directed Almeida to a portable ladder rising to an upper deck they were pouring.
https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/step_by_step_rescuers_dodged_danger_to_save_a_life_in_partial_building_collapse