Retaining Wall Collapses In Inwood: Upper Manhattan Storm Recap

INWOOD, NY — The rains and winds beat down on Washington Heights and Inwood Wednesday night, leaving different levels of damage throughout the two neighborhoods.

At one point, Upper Manhattan was specified by meteorologists as the only area in the borough that a tornado would move through.

TIGHT TORNADO CIRCULATION IN UPPER MANHATTAN MOVING TOWARDS THE BRONX.

Get to shelter NOW!!! pic.twitter.com/ZuqtUVDMTI
— Pat Cavlin (@pcavlin) September 2, 2021

As of Thursday morning, it is still unclear if a tornado actually passed through Washington Heights and Inwood.

Tornado or not, a retaining wall at Park Terrace West and 218th Street in Inwood gave out Wednesday night, bringing a car down with it.

The wall collapsed into an alleyway between 93 Park Terrace West and the apartment building at 560 West 218th Street.

"I can't imagine what the people in the lower apartment thought when they first heard/saw the car," an uptown resident wrote on Facebook about the wall collapse.

Patch reached out to the Department of Buildings to get any updated information about the wall collapse and will update the story accordingly.

In other parts of Upper Manhattan, cars were seen abandoned Thursday morning on the West Side Highway around West 160th Street.

"There was at least one other abandoned car near the one turned sideways, but no police activity and lines of slow traffic crawling around them," Rob Garber told Patch.

There were multiple reports of flooding and damage to Upper Manhattan buildings from Wednesday's storm.

Part of the lobby ceiling in my Washington Heights building came down tonight. pic.twitter.com/5BNuxe9REA
— Esther Acosta (@EstherAcosta126) September 2, 2021

Videos also circulated of the 145th Street 1 train station flooding, which is just outside of Washington Heights.

Water falls down the stairs at 145th Street station, 1 Train, in #Manhattan, #NYC, on Wednesday night. pic.twitter.com/gfkgMFRnt1
— Kwitter (@Kwitter12085169) September 2, 2021

The flooding Wednesday night did not reach the levels seen earlier in the summer when a severe thunderstorm dumped water into the two Upper Manhattan neighborhoods.

The storm on July 8 put the 157th Street 1 train station underwater as cars did their best to navigate uptown roads through multiple feet of flooding.

Read More: Washington Heights, Inwood Flooded After Rainstorm: See It