Inspectors can't always vouch for historic sites

History, it would seem, is the only thing supporting the once glorious El Jardin Hotel on Levee Street.

City officials can't vouch for the structural integrity of the increasingly dilapidated 12-story structure that hugs a Ross department store in its shadows.

But it and other buildings of historical significance survived Hurricane Dolly in July, they said.

"They've been through every hurricane we can name," Historic Downtown District Director Peter Goodman said of many of the buildings.

Absent a business sign that broke and a new canopy that collapsed, the buildings weathered Dolly well, Goodman said.

El Jardin is among approximately 400 houses and buildings, some more than 100 years old, with historical value in Brownsville. However, it is difficult for the city to gauge their condition or ensure their safety before and after weather events.

The city does not have an inspection program that monitors the historical building's conditions and instead relies on either random visual takes or specific reports of concerns, city Building Inspector Evaristo Gamez said.

"We do inspections on permits that our office issues," said Gamez, who also noted that staff members are not structural engineers.

Many of these buildings are in the downtown area, including the once majestic El Jardin - across the street from the Capitol Theatre. The hotel now displays pane-less windows, rotten frames and taped panes to keep the glass together in the event of breaks. The bottom doors and windows are boarded.

The only addition to the long vacant building on the market since 1986 is an electronic device to keep pigeons away.

Although October 2003 didn't bring any hurricanes to Brownsville, a 3-foot-by-2-foot concrete section of El Jardin fell into the attic of the abutting building that housed another department store at the time.

The chunk was an architectural molding that hugged a corner of the building's facade.

"It's solid concrete, the size of a small chair," then city manager Lanny Lambert told The Brownsville Herald at the time. "It sheared off and fell off."

City crews cordoned off and barricaded the hotel so that the owners from Matamoros could remove all of the exterior decorations. The fire escape ladders also were removed. It also was fenced for a while after glass fell from a window or windows onto the sidewalk.

Ross regional manager Jesse Saldivar did not return a telephone call from comment on the store's neighbor.

Then city health director Josue Ramirez told the Herald in 2003 that there had been concerns about the foundation and stability of El Jardin, but Goodman said then that an inspection showed that the structure was in good condition.

Arturo Rodriguez was a 19-year-old paramedic with the city who responded with emergency services personnel to assist in the collapse of the three-story La Tienda Amigo on July 7, 1988. Fourteen people died and 47 were injured.

At the corner of Elizabeth and 13th streets, the building collapsed after two inches of rain fell within 30 minutes, a report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Fire Administration notes.

The federal report of the collapse pointed out that the weight of the water collapsed the roof in a pancake style, blowing out the front wall and collapsing the sidewalls on top of the debris.

"I don't want to live through that again," said Rodriguez, who is now the city's health department director. "It's one of those events that occurs in your life that you never forget."

During the first week on the job, Rodriguez asked fellow department heads, "what are we going to do with El Jardin?"

He sees El Jardin just about every day. It is less than a block away from City Plaza that houses city offices.

"It's next door to us," Rodriguez said. "Even though, it is outside of my department, I see it as an unsecured structure."

The stone work and ornate concrete moldings that the owners stripped from the structure were not removed from the building. Goodman said Friday that there are approximately 70 pieces of the stone work and moldings on the roof of El Jardin. Their weight could not be determined at presstime.