The body recovered from the rubble of a collapsed parking garage in New York has been identified as a missing employee of the company, police have confirmed.

The medical examiner’s office said Willis Moore, 59, was crushed when the structure imploded on Tuesday afternoon.

Five other people were injured when the three-storey building collapsed, shaking nearby buildings just blocks from City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge in downtown Manhattan.

Dozens of cars were buried in tons of debris.

The City’s Building Department is looking into why the century-old structure collapsed.

Inspectors had cited the property owner two decades ago for failing to properly maintain the building, finding at the time that there were “cracks and defects” in the concrete. A 2013 inspection showed no further structural issues, according to an update that the Building Department provided Wednesday.

Building owners had until the end of the year to conduct a structural inspection of the structure under a safety programme launched by the city last year. The new requirements ordered an initial inspection and additional inspections at least once every six years.

Enterprise Ann Parking, which operated the garage on Ann Street, said it was cooperating with authorities in their probe. A spokesman for the company called the collapse a tragedy.

“We are devastated at the loss of one of our long-time employees and our thoughts are with his family and those who were injured in the accident,” the company’s spokesman Jeremy Zweig said.

Garage customer Ahmed Scott described Mr Moore as a friendly man.

“Every morning I’d see him,” said Mr Scott. “When I was leaving that morning — the last time we saw each other — we smiled, waved at each other.”

Crews are continuing demolition work, using heavy machinery to dig into the rubble.