East Village facade plunges to street, Brooklyn building falls during storm

As Tropical Storm Isaias tore through New York City Tuesday, a Brooklyn building partially collapsed and part of a Manhattan building’s exterior wall plummeted to the street below.

Chunks of facade fell from an East Village co-op building at 12th Street and Fourth Avenue, stripping the property’s rust-colored exterior wall from the eighth through 13th floors, WABC reported. The cause of the collapse is not yet known, but Department of Buildings filings indicate that agency inspectors were called to 111 Fourth Avenue Tuesday afternoon to check on its facade.

According to the agency, synthetic stucco cladding fell from the East Village building and primarily crashed into a neighboring parking lot, damaging six cars. DOB issued a violation against the building owner, a partial vacate order for the neighboring parking lot and ordered the building owner to immediately install a sidewalk shed around two sides of the building.

In Williamsburg, a vacant building at 204 Bedford Avenue owned by RedSky Capital also partially collapsed Tuesday. The second and third floors reportedly fell into the street. A representative for RedSky did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Four tenants in a neighboring building were displaced by the collapse and have received help from the American Red Cross to relocate, according to DOB.

The incidents follow the partial collapse of other buildings last month, as well as a fatal scaffolding incident. On July 16 a construction worker was killed while repairing the facade at 136 East 36th Street. The Department of Buildings is still investigating what caused the suspended scaffolding to collapse. That same day, just a few blocks away, the wall of 211 East 34th Street, a vacant five-story building, collapsed. The agency determined that the structure was not stable and ordered its full demolition.

Write to Kathryn Brenzel at kathryn@therealdeal.com