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 NYC Window Washer Dead After Fall
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[December 08, 2007]
NEW YORK (AP) -- Their job was one of routine peril - washing windows on Manhattan skyscrapers. The danger proved deadly for Edgar Moreno and nearly so for his brother. Their work platform gave way as they stepped onto it Friday from the roof of a 47-story Upper East Side apartment building, sending them on a horrifying plunge to a plaza below.
"They apparently fell all the way from the top," said Fire Department spokesman John Mulligan.
Edgar Moreno, 30, of Linden, N.J., was pronounced dead at the scene. His 37-year-old brother was taken to a hospital in critical condition, officials said. No update on his condition was available early Saturday from firefighters or police.
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 Authorities were investigating the accident, but a buildings official said the workers apparently were not wearing safety harnesses when they fell.
"That appears not to have happened here," city Buildings Department Deputy Commissioner Robert LiMandri told reporters.
Solow Management Corp., the building's owner, issued a statement Friday extending sympathy to the workers' family and said it was cooperating with the investigation.
Officials said the two worked for City Wide Window Cleaning in Queens. One of the company's phone numbers was out of service, and a person who answered a second number said she was authorized only to answer service calls and would not take a message seeking comment.
A doorman at the building said the window washers had worked there for about three years.
Phil Stellar, who lives on the ninth floor of the modern glass tower on East 66th Street, was packing for a business trip around 10:30 a.m. Friday when he said, "I heard a stunning rumble."
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 It was the platform falling. Parts of it and Edgar Moreno's body landed in a plaza outside the building.
"It's a horrible, horrible tragedy and a reminder that life is very tentative," Stellar said.
About three hours after the accident, a piece of glass from a window on the top floor, where the platform had been attached, fell to the ground. No one was hurt when the glass fell, but the city Buildings Department ordered the street partially blocked until glass damaged by the falling platform was repaired. The agency also ordered repairs to a nearby home where debris fell through the skylights.
[Associated
Press; By ULA ILNYTZKY]
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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