Building Facade Collapse In The Heights Sends Person To The ER

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — A section of decorative stone above the main entrance of a building in Washington Heights dislodged and fell to the earth on Friday, hitting a man on the top of the head and sending him to the hospital, according to the Department of Buildings and a man who was at the scene.

Just before 9 p.m. on Friday, the FDNY responded to a partial roof collapse after a resident was walking a neighbor out of their building at West 184th Street when he opened the front door exit and was struck by a piece of falling concrete, according to an eyewitness and the Department of Buildings.

The impact caused "excessive bleeding" to the injured man and the collapsed facade also broke the handrail on the front steps of the building, neighbor Julio Cruz told Patch.

The injured man was taken to a nearby hospital, according to FDNY.

Department of Building inspectors were also called to the Washington Heights building on Friday night. The investigators determined that additional sections of the stone facade above the building entrance were noticeably loose, and removed the pieces due to its potential danger to the public.

The Department of Buildings issued a violation to the property owners for failure to maintain the building and ordered the owner to contract an engineer in order to compile a report of the structural stability of the 662 West 184th Street building.

The DOB never previously received any complaints nor issued any violations related to the condition of the facade of the building, but the city agency did issue a violation to the property's owner in 2019 for multiple window air conditioner units that had not been installed properly.

The violation was corrected.