One person was hurt -- a man who had been sitting in a now crushed Cadillac -- when a wall of bricks tumbled from the facade of a vacant garage in Manhattan Wednesday, authorities and sources familiar with the investigation say.
The FDNY responded to a report of the collapse at a five-story building on East 38th Street shortly after noon. According to the Department of Buildings, a 45-foot by 10-foot section of bricks collapsed from the parapet level of the façade to the sidewalk. The man in the Cadillac hurt his leg but is expected to be OK.
Two other nearby cars were hit by falling bricks, DOB said. The agency has ordered the property owner to immediately install a sidewalk shed in front of the building. It says its investigation is ongoing and additional enforcement action are pending the result of that probe.
According to DOB records, the building was last inspected July 6 and was cited because inspectors couldn't gain access for the second time in less than two weeks. No one responded to knocks at the door and the metal gate was rolled down and padlocked, DOB records say.
It wasn't immediately clear if construction had been going on at the site at the time of the facade collapse.
