A 33-year-old construction worker died after falling down an elevator shaft at a building in the Flatiron District Tuesday morning, police said.
Jucong Wu, of Brooklyn, was installing an elevator car on the ninth floor of 111 East 24th St., between Park and Lexington avenues, at about 8:50 a.m. when he fell, according to police.
He was found unconscious at the bottom of the shaft and pronounced dead at the scene, the FDNY and NYPD said.
Wu, who was employed by U-Tek Elevator Inc., was not tied to a safety line, the Department of Buildings said.
The building, owned by SCIPM East 24 LLC, is slated to be a 12-story hotel.
Multiple people, possibly members of Wu’s family, were crying at the scene after his body was removed from the building.
Workers at nearby construction sites carried on with their jobs as NYPD and DOB officials investigated.
The DOB issued a full stop work order for the site, which did not have any open violations as of Tuesday, a spokeswoman said. Trinity Builders Inc., the building’s general contractor, was issued more than 20 violations for the site in the past two years that have since closed, according to DOB records.
There were also multiple complaints about unsafe conditions at the site, including workers not using safety straps, in 2017, DOB records show.
U-Tek Elevator Inc. and Trinity Builders Inc. did not immediately comment. SCIPM East 24 LLC declined to comment.
With Rajvi Desai
