A portion of the white-brick facade at The St. Mark apartment building, at Third Ave. and E. Ninth St., started to bulge outward last Wednesday afternoon May 12, causing evacuations and a partial closing of the avenue. The small bulge — on the 15th floor — was spotted around 5:30 p.m., according to reports. Firefighters and other workers quickly secured the precarious patch of bricks, luckily none of which plummeted to the street.
According to reports, three apartments were evacuated. ABC News reported that five street-level stores were told to close, and that the tony co-op currently has 17 open Department of Buildings violations, including one for facade safety.
Trigger, owner of the Continental bar across the street, will always remind you that his friend punk rocker Joey Ramone used to live in “the white building.” Again, luckily, there was no “Blitzkrieg Bop” — as in, no one was brained by falling bricks.
