The Nation - News from Aug. 17, 1987

The L’Ambiance Plaza apartment building project was beset with problems related to its lift-slab construction method in the weeks before it collapsed and killed 28 men, according to a major subcontractor’s documents. The documents, obtained by the Hartford Courant and cited in a story, include daily construction logs for Texstar Construction Corp., which was responsible for lifting the concrete floor slabs into place at the building in Bridgeport. In the lift-slab method, concrete floor slabs are poured in layers on the ground and then hoisted to the correct level on vertical steel columns by large hydraulic jacks. The April 23 collapse is under investigation.