Extra Time: What's next after Bronx building collapse; is NYC tourism back?

MORRIS HEIGHTS, Bronx (WABC) -- In this edition of Eyewitness News Extra Time, we have the latest on the cleanup and investigation after an apartment building in the Bronx partially collapsed on Monday.

A corner of the 96-year-old, seven-story occupied apartment building located on Billingsley Terrace in Morris Heights collapsed around 3:30 p.m.

Incredibly, no one was seriously hurt. Firefighters spent hours searching through a 12-foot pile of debris and did not find any victims.

Preparations are now underway for an "emergency demolition" of building segments left hanging in the collapsed corner.

A new dash cam video reveals just how close the collapse came to being catastrophic. An MTA bus was passing the building when the debris crashed down, narrowly missing the bus and a car that backed away in the nick of time.

Eyewitness news reporter Jim Dolan was in Morris Heights with the latest details.

As to what went wrong with the old building, it was no stranger to safety problems.

Eyewitness News obtained an engineer's report that warned about cracks and other problems with the building. The problems were found years ago, but were never fixed.

Investigative reporter Kristen Thorne has a closer look of what went wrong.

Here are the other major headlines from Tuesday's show:

Can NYC tourism bounce back?

It is that time of year when tourists flood the streets of New York City. Destinations like Times Square, Rockefeller Center and Fifth Avenue, already popular in their own right, become even more crowded. Tourism creates hundreds of thousands of jobs and generates billions in tax dollars, but the city's tourism industry still isn't where it was pre-pandemic, and something big has to happen for the crowds and spending to get back to where they were. Investigative reporter Dan Krauth has the details, and Tiffany Townsend from NYC Tourism joined the show to discuss further.

Fake party turns to real toy drive

What started as a joke has now become a real holiday treat. Last month Drew Delgado of Lacey Township posted an event on Facebook for what he called a "Walmart self-checkout Christmas party" at a nearby store. Delgado was not serious about the party, but more than 21,000 people responded saying they were interested. Walmart said it had no interest in hosting the event, but the joke has now turned quite genuine.

Delgado joined the show with more on the holiday joke that turned into a legitimate toy drive.

You can watch 'Eyewitness News Extra Time' live Monday-Friday at 6:30 p.m. on ABC7NY.com or our ABC7NY app on Roku, FireTV, Apple TV and Android TV.