Brooklyn: A construction worker has died after falling from the roof of a historic bank under demolition.
Published by John on
LATBUSH, Brooklyn (WABC) — A construction worker has died after falling from the roof of a historic bank under demolition.
The worker fell at the former Flatbush Avenue home of Flatbush Savings Bank just before 8:30 a.m. Thursday. The 49-year-old man from the Bronx was taken to Kings County hospital where he was later pronounced dead.
The Department of Buildings is investigating. They said the building has active work permits for the demolition of the existing building.
The former Flatbush Savings Bank site was slated for demolition earlier this year. The new property owners plan to replace it with a new mixed-use building, a decision that forced some protests among community members.
According to BKLYNER, a local activist group had sent a letter to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, urging the site be converted to landmark status.
The three-story bank was completed in 1927 and designed by architecture firm Halsey, McCormack & Helmer, which was also behind the landmarked Williamsburg Savings Bank building in north Brooklyn among other notable projects.
Thursday’s death marked the third fatal incident involving a construction worker in just over a week in the city. On May 22, a worker in Queens fell to his death from a scaffold at a building under construction. Three days earlier, a worker was killed and a second worker injured in an elevator fall at a building renovation in the Bronx.
In a statement, Commissioner Melanie La Rocca said the deaths were “tragic, senseless – and even worse, entirely avoidable” and said, “This is a sobering reminder that as our city gets back to work that the industry must do more to keep workers safe. Anything less is wholly unacceptable.”
