A woman has been killed after part of a building façade collapsed and fell on her while she was walking along the sidewalk below, Tuesday morning.
The woman was walking around West 49th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues near Times Square at around 10:30 a.m. when the incident occurred, CBS2 reported.
First responders reportedly pronounced the 60-year-old victim dead at the scene after she was found lying on the sidewalk below where the collapse occurred.
Her name has not yet been released.
No other injuries have been reported.
The incident happened around one of the busiest of the city’s corners during the busiest time of year and nearby vendors said they did not hear or see anything until after the collapse when it was too late.
“There was a gentleman next to me standing on the side of the road who said he was walking with her and he just stopped for a second to buy an umbrella,” one witness told CBS2. “He was freaked out because he said ‘it could have been me.'”
All this scaffolding and still a woman was killed this morning when a piece of a façade on a Times Square building fell off and hit her https://t.co/HphoXjRtxx
— Market Urbanism (@MarketUrbanism) December 17, 2019
The victim has not been removed and the area between 49th Street and 7th Avenue reportedly remains cordoned off.
News Update has a live video of the situation on the ground where police and fire trucks were gathered and first responders could be seen moving vendors out of the area.
According to the New York Times, inspectors from the Department of Buildings also arrived on the scene to check the closest tall building, 729 Seventh Avenue, for structural damage.
