One moment, you're in the coffee shop at the Parker-Meridien. The next, the neighboring building's construction crew somehow breaks through the wall and sends a river of concrete onto the floor. Bernard Gershon told NBC New York that he was "there with a friend when they heard debris falling behind the wall, and a rustling noise. 'Then we heard a cracking sound, so we thought we should get up. Then we heard loud cracking, then we were running like mad out to 57th Street.'"
As for the concrete itself, it looked like "lava flowing over the furniture.... One minute I'm sipping a cappuccino, the next minute I'm running for my life from a wall of cement."
Coincidentally, the mess came from the construction of a future hotel! According to DNAinfo, "Workers were pouring concrete for the fifth floor of a planned hotel 29-story hotel, the Willow, when the wooden mold broke, sending the wet mixture cascading into the Parker Meridien. A spokesman for the DOB said the agency was investigating whether the mold, known as 'form work,' was 'constructed properly.' A stop work order Wednesday for the site, at 120 W. 57th St., for failing to safeguard persons and property."
