A five-pound bucket of cement fell 23 stories from nearly the top of 66 Court St., demolishing a city-owned car and bringing back eerie memories of a similar incident 25 years ago — but unlike that fatal accident, only one passer-by was shaken up this time.
Construction workers were making repairs to the building, whose address is also 75 Livingston St., on Monday at about 11 am when they lost control of the bucket, sending it crashing down onto a Department of Environmental Protection-owned Toyota Prius parked 30 feet below.
The impact tore through the roof and shattered the windows of the hybrid sedan.
“I consider myself the luckiest man in the world,” said Omar Ishak, the DEP worker who had been in the car only minutes earlier.
Ishak and his partner told the Daily News that they ended up getting splattered head-to-toe by the cement — but it would have been much worse if they had been walking to their vehicle just seconds later.
The pedestrian sustained only minor eye injuries from falling debris.
The construction workers had been doing routine maintenance, and had permits for the work, said a spokesman for Tudor Realty Services, which owns the property.
Nonetheless, the city halted construction at the site until a full investigation can be conducted.
It’s not the first time that construction workers at 66 Court St. have lost their bucket.
In 1982, just a year after the building began its conversion from office to residential space, a young woman was killed by a pail of cement that fell four stories. The victim, Mayda Alsace, was a young lawyer and Park Slope resident.
In 1989, the city smacked the building with the violation of fallen objects again, this time for a piece of metal.
And in April of this year, the city cited the building for scaffolding that failed to meet safety codes.
The 80-year-old building has more than a dozen active violations pending, according to city records.
