A 19-year-old construction worker was killed and two others sustained serious injuries when a building undergoing conversion at 656 Myrtle Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant collapsed late Thursday morning.
The three construction workers, who have not yet been identified, were excavating the site when a rear wall toppled onto them. Two sustained serious head injuries and the other was in cardiac arrest when first responders arrived.
All three were rushed to area hospitals, where one was pronounced dead. City fire officials said the wall was not properly supported. Five other workers on the site did not sustain any injuries, according to DNAinfo.
Property records show Chaim and Esther Green own the property. Green filed permits in May 2014 to enlarge the one-story Bed-Stuy retail building into a five-story residential building. The new structure was expected to include two duplex apartments and ground-floor retail.
General contractor Y&S Framers Inc. could not immediately be reached for comment.
Green’s Myrtle Avenue property was hit with two violations last year, including one severe violation, according to Department of Buildings records. He was fined $1,500 for failing to correct a violation from August for wood falling from the front facade onto the pedestrian walkway on Myrtle Avenue. A more recent citizen complaint found that a wall was not “stable.”
Green also owns a three-unit residential building at 128 Hooper Street in Williamsburg.
The death of the 19-year-old worker represents the second fatality at a work site this week in New York City. A 30-year-old worker at an Upper East Side co-op was killed when he fell from scaffolding. [DNAinfo] — Kyna Doles