Waldorf Astoria Construction Worker Plunges to His Death-The Spirit

The Waldorf Astoria’s much-delayed $2 billion overhaul was hit with a full stop-work order after a 45 year-old construction worker plummeted to his death on Thursday, Jan. 2.

Policed identified the victim as Elie William by Jan. 6. He fell through a hole in a suspended ceiling on the swanky Park Ave. hotel’s sixth floor shortly before 10 a.m., before landing 40 ft. below in a third floor ballroom. He was reportedly helping an electrician at the time, and was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS.

The luxury hotel is in the midst of a $2 billion top-to-bottom revamp. It shut down in 2017 after planning to add 375 condos for long-term residents, and was originally scheduled to reopen its doors to patrons in 2020, but COVID and other construction delays pushed the opening back to this spring.

Suffolk Construction Corporation is the project’s general contractor, while the while Pierre-Yves Rochon is in charge of the revamped interiors. The 625-foot-tall Art Deco landmark occupies a full city block bound by Park Avenue to the west, East 49th Street to the south, East 50th Street to the north, and Lexington Avenue to the east.

Under the stop work order, the DOB is demanding that safety conditions for construction workers be improved before the order will be lifted.

”Failure to safeguard and maintain safety measure led to the cause of the incident, DOB violation was issued Stop all construction work entire jobsite, provide safety measures for operations going forward,” the order notes.

It’s the second fatal construction accident on the East Side of Manhattan in less than a month. Queens resident Jose Ramirez Munoz, another 45 year-old construction worker, was killed on Dec. 13 while working on the demolition of the Community Church of New York–and its affiliated residential brownstones–on E. 35th St., between Madison and Lexington Avenues.

In that incident, a cherry picker that he was riding on hoisted him 32 ft. above the ground, bashing him..Read More