Nutter Promises $300,000 for Building Collapse Memorial

The City of Philadelphia is donating $300,000 toward the fund to build a memorial park in honor of the victims killed when a building collapsed into a Salvation Army store in 2013, Mayor Michael Nutter announced Friday.

Nutter made the pledge during remarks at a special ceremony commemorating the tragedy’s second anniversary, according to Philly.com. The contribution puts the fund for the June 5th Memorial Park $350,000 short of its $1.3 million goal, the report says.

Six people were killed on June 5, 2013, when a building under demolition toppled over onto a Salvation Army thrift store on Market Street in Center City. The victims include:

• Anne Bryan, 24, of Narberth, daughter of Philadelphia City Treasurer Nancy Walker.
• Mary Simpson, 24, a 2007 graduate of Haverford High School and audio engineer, who was shopping with her friend, Anne Bryan.
• Kimberly Finnegan, 35, a 1996 graduate of William Tennent High School in Warminster who had just started her first shift as a cashier for the store.
• Roseline Conteh, 52, an immigrant from Sierra Leone and mother of nine.
• Bobor Davis, 68, an employee of the store.
• Juanita Harmin, 75, a retired secretary at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

The designs for the memorial were unveiled during Friday’s ceremony, according to 6-ABC. The park will center around three large granite slabs that will reflect a house, with six windows carrying the names of the victims.

The public is asked to continue making donations to the memorial’s fund hosted by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.