HARRISBURG, Pa. — Five years since a wall collapsed next to the Mulberry Street Bridge in Harrisburg, crushing one of the city's most popular tire and auto businesses, and a giant pile of rubble and debris remains untouched.
Howard Henry, owner of Howard Tire and Auto, the business along Cameron Street which was forced to close in November 2016, says he is running out of options, time, and money.
On May 5, 2016, a retaining wall above his business gave out under the weight of heavy rains. The wall was holding up a parking lot for the McFarland Apartment complex. Along with the heavy amount of bricks and stone which fell in the collapse, a car from the lot also fell, which still sits on top of Mr. Henry's business roof.
The last five years has been a cycle of finger-pointing and court hearings. It took nearly three years, until April of 2019, for Judge Lawrence Clark to determine the owners of the McFarland Apartments were responsible for devising a plan to pay for and then clean up the wall collapse.
It took nearly another year for that plan to be finalized, only for Pennsylvania courts to close the week of a scheduled hearing in March 2020 due to COVID-19.
Weeks later, Judge Clark was removed from the case, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court removed his senior judge status after he was caught taking pandemic unemployment benefits.
"The judge takes $600 a week in unemployment and I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring this to an end. Really?" an exasperated Mr. Henry said in June 2020 after Judge Clark was removed from the case.
Henry declined to be interviewed on camera when reached this week.
Senior Judge Kevin Hess replaced Clark on the case. He agreed with Judge Clark that McFarland had to pay to clean-up the hillside mess, though rescinded the order, at least for the time being, that McFarland's owners were responsible for repairing Mr. Henry's business.
Harrisburg city officials said a contractor has been hired and clean-up along the hillside is expected to begin in May 2021, five years after the collapse occurred. Mayor Eric Papenfuse did not respond to FOX43 calls and emails related to this story.
Mr. Henry's attorney, Garry Boehlert of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr in Washington D.C., says the court process has taken unusually long. All parties met in court as recently as the last week of April. However, Mr. Henry's multiple lawsuits are still undecided, and there's been no closure as to who will pay to clean-up his destroyed building.
"There's a lot of obstacles in there that cloud that light and make me wonder what it is," Henry told FOX43 in August 2019. "One day, I'll believe it's the light I'm looking for. Until that day comes, I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic."
