Heavy stone falls from Brooklyn office tower, one injured

1 woman cut by falling debris at 16 Court St.

February 8, 2023 Mary Frost

The fall of the heavy keystone was halted when it became wedged between a scaffolding support bar and a window ledge. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

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BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — A heavy keystone fell from the second floor of a 37-story landmarked office building in Brooklyn Heights on Wednesday afternoon, bending and pushing past the edge of corrugated scaffolding before miraculously getting wedged between a support bar and a window ledge.

Splintered wood and shattered glass from a broken office window fell to the crowded sidewalk in front of 16 Court St. at the corner of Montague Street, striking a woman standing in front of the building.

“She had blood coming out of the top of her head,” said Anthony Truesdale, a regular vendor on Court Street who operates right next to the building entrance. “She kept saying, ‘I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding.’ She was panicked, you know? I came around to see about her, and I told her, ‘You’ll be alright, calm down.’”

The sidewalk in front of 16 Court St. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

Truesdale said the police came right away, “And then the ambulance came after that. It took them a while to come, but they came.”

An FDNY spokesperson said the injured woman was transported to Long Island College Hospital, which is what NYU Langone’s Cobble Hill emergency facility on Amity Street is listed as with the department.

The Fire Department received the call of “falling bricks/ major injury” at 2:33 p.m., he said.

A woman said her friend worked in the second floor office with the broken window but luckily escaped being hurt. “She wasn’t at her desk,” she said.

A construction worker told the Brooklyn Eagle that men had been working near the keystone at the time of the incident. The heavy keystone had been resting on a 2-inch lintel.

A representative from the Colgate Scaffolding Company arrived at the scene afterwards to inspect the damage, and workers swept up the glass and wood in front of the Duane Reade drugstore on the corner.

The missing keystone fell from this spot in the 37-story office building at 16 Court St. in Brooklyn Heights. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

The office building was constructed in 1928. According to the NYC Buildings Department, the building’s exterior is made of cast stone, masonry and terra cotta.

A partial stop work order exists on the building. An inspection filed in October 2022 categorized the exterior facade as “unsafe,” listing a number of cracks in the masonry and terra cotta. All facade repairs were required to be made by June 2024.

Investment firm CIM Group purchased 16 Court St. in Brooklyn Heights for $171 million, according to Real Estate Weekly. The property is also known as the Montague-Court Building.