Bricks Tear Loose From Building, Rain On Manhattan Sidewalk

Nearly a ton of black bricks poured off the side of a 40-story midtown Manhattan office building on Sunday afternoon, raining debris on a street filled with shoppers and slightly injuring a child.

A 3-year-old girl had a minor cut on her face from the accident and a 74-year-old German tourist, gawking at the dangling bricks and scaffolding, tripped and cut his nose, Fire Department officials said.

“It sounded like a car crash,” said Ray Bermudez, a cook at Checkerboard Gourmet, half a block from the Madison Avenue office building where the bricks tore loose.

The safety netting and scaffolding were on the south side of the office building, hanging over a neighboring rooftop - not over Madison Avenue.

Black netting at the 34th floor slipped and slammed into scaffolding that broke in two, each half dangling from its guidewires, fire officials said.