Building Owners Reportedly Neglected Crumbling Facade That Killed 2-Year-Old

The city is still investigating how debris fell from a window ledge at an Upper West Side building on Sunday, killing a 2-year-old girl and injuring her grandmother, and Department of Building documents show that the owners had not performed recent required work on the building's facade.

Greta Greene, 2, was pronounced dead yesterday after undergoing surgery, following Sunday's incident. Her grandmother, 60-year-old Susan Frierson, was sitting on a bench with her on West End Avenue near 74th Street at around 11 a.m. when part of a terra-cotta facade fell from a windowsill at the Esplanade building. A witness told the Times he heard Frierson yelling, "She’s not breathing! She’s not breathing!" and saw the child laid out on a bench.

The city has installed scaffolding outside The Esplanade, a luxury senior residence building, in the wake of Sunday's accident. The building passed a facade inspection in 2011, but the engineer who conducted it told the Times it's possible the windowsill from which the bricks had fallen had not been thoroughly examined. "There’s a chance you won’t see every single break, and there’s a chance it wasn’t broken until later," he told the paper.

The owners have reportedly been fined $7,500 for failing to perform recent required work on the facade, though there are no complaints on the DOB's website regarding the facade pre-Sunday. "The entire Scharf family is heartbroken by this tragedy,” they said in a statement yesterday. “We are fully cooperating with city emergency response agencies and the Department of Buildings to determine the cause of this horrible incident and to safeguard the public."

Frierson lives on 74th Street, and neighbors say she was devoted to Greta and looked forward to her visits. "This is a tragedy beyond belief. This is her only grandchild," a neighbor told the Daily News. Greta's parents, Stacy Frierson Greene and Jayson Greene, live in Ditmas Park—Frierson Greene is a lactation consultant, and Greene is an editor at Pitchfork. They've made the decision to donate Greta's organs.