Contractor Cited for Fort Greene Brownstone Wall Collapse, Not His First Construction Debacle

Around 8 a.m. on July 18, a contractor renovating a brownstone on an upscale block of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, accidentally broke through the wall of an adjacent property, compromising the structure of both buildings and rendering them unsafe for habitation.

The contracting firm and brownstone are both owned by the same person, Vadem Brodsky. Contractors are required to promptly report such incidents to the Department of Buildings, but Brodsky did not tell the agency about what had happened on South Portland Avenue until 6:48 p.m. — after close-of-business hours for the agency.

Because of the way the contractor described the incident — stating only that “during construction operations the adjacent property party wall was penetrated” — DOB did not dispatch an emergency response team that night, instead tagging it for inspection the next day.

When Inspector #3109 showed up around 11 a.m., he discovered the situation was far more serious than what DOB had been told: the breached wall of the adjacent brownstone was load-bearing — and the breach had triggered a partial wall collapse in both brownstones.

The inspector immediately slapped a vacate order on both properties, forcing the occupant of  the adjacent structure to move into a hotel. By then that resident — an 84-year-old who’d lived there for more than 50 years — had spent the last 24-plus hours residing in a structurally unsound brownstone, unaware of the seriousness of the incident that had occurred the previous day.

Within days, residents of this leafy block just south of Fort Greene Park, where brownstones sell for millions of dollars, were alarmed by the incident. A neighbor’s quick internet search revealed a disturbing fact about the owner/contractor Brodsky — a prior construction site debacle reported by THE CITY.

Back in 2019, Brodsky was a member of the limited liability corporation behind a Fourth Avenue condo project in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood when a sloppily secured scaffold catapulted off a roof and landed in the outdoor dining garden of an adjacent restaurant. The huge metal structure fell on top of a patron enjoying brunch, causing a catastrophic brain injury that changed her life forever.

In that case, DOB cited Brodsky for failing to provide documentation of his oversight of the property in the days leading up to the catastrophe. Records show six months before the scaffolding disaster, he’d fired an independent site safety supervisor and appointed himself to handle the job.

Then in 2022, DOB cited Brodsky’s company, Endo Services, for failing to file an notification report to DOB within three business days as required after a worker installing netting at a condo project in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, lacerated a finger while installing netting and was treated an an urgent care facility.

In that case, Endo failed to appear at a March 2024 Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH), triggering a default judgment on a $12,500 fine. As of Monday, DOB had no record of Endo paying that fine.

‘Danger of Future Collapse’

In the incident on South Portland Avenue, Brodsky bought the brownstone in March for $4.7 million. Under the prior owner another contractor had obtained a permit to convert the property from four units into a single home, but the job had not begun by the time Brodsky bought the building.

In May Brodsky’s company, Endo Services, obtained a permit as general contractor on the job, records show.

Construction moved ahead without incident until the Endo crew punctured the wall. Upon a full inspection, buildings inspectors discovered the joists supporting each of the floors had been removed and replaced, and cellar stairs — which building plans indicated should not be removed — were taken out. The position of the stairs from the first floor to the second floor were “not properly position(ed) correctly,” and there was no permit for excavation of the foundation that had taken place, records show.

DOB issued a full stop-work order, citing “inadequate support and shoring creating an unsafe condition for adjacent property,” and noted that the work performed there appeared “to be beyond the scope of construction documents.”

A subsequent re-inspection on July 23 deemed both buildings “structurally compromised and in danger of future collapse.”

DOB charged Endo Services with four violations, including doing work without a permit and performing work that did not conform to plans DOB had approved, as well as “failing to notify the agency of an accident, incident or damage to an adjoining property.” Endo now faces $20,000 in fines.

DOB also slapped Jacob Rybner, a licensed superintendent of construction, with a $5,000 fine for failure to promptly notify DOB about the party-wall partial collapse.

The agency cited neither Endo nor Rybner for providing misleading information to DOB about the severity of the incident. Asked about this, DOB spokesperson Andrew Rudansky stated, “The Department already issued multiple violations on [July 19], and additional enforcement actions might be taken as a result of our ongoing investigation.”

A man who answered a phone call from THE CITY to a number listed at DOB for Endo Services on Monday said, “You have the wrong number,” before hanging up.

Asked by THE CITY about what happened at the site, Rybner responded, “It was just an old wall that gave up. It’s 150 years old.” Regarding the delay in notifying DOB about the incident, he replied, “I really can’t talk about it. Take care,” and hung up.

Fortunately no one was hurt in the occupied brownstone next to Brodsky’s property, although a contractor at the site Tuesday told THE CITY it will be “several months” before the buildings will be habitable again.

Serious Brain Injuries

In the 2019 incident on Fourth Avenue, Haley Keating, a young accountant who was celebrating a promotion in an outdoor garden of a restaurant next to the condo project Brodsky was involved in, was seriously hurt.

Documents filed in a lawsuit brought by Keating’s family reveal that DOB inspectors discovered the scaffolding on the building’s roof was not properly secured when a gust blew it off the roof and fell on Keating. She suffered severe brain injuries that left her debilitated, according to the lawsuit filed against Brodsky, the building’s owners and several contractors on the job.

At one point, records show, shortly before the incident Brodsky was warned by a contractor at the site that the scaffolding tie-backs had been removed and that a crew was being dispatched to the roof to take it all down. But Brodsky ordered them to go to a different “more important” site instead, and the dismantling never got done, records show.

DOB issued one violation against Brodsky, the site safety coordinator on the job, for failing to provide documentation of the job’s safety oversight in the days leading up to the accident. The violation was settled without Brodsky having to pay the fine.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez later brought criminal charges against one of the contractors, Silvercup Scaffolding, for failing to keep the building safe. That case is still pending.

Keating’s civil lawsuit appears to have been settled in September, according to the court file. Attorneys in that case declined to comment.

Based on erroneous information provided by the Brooklyn DA’s office, a previous version of this article erroneously stated that Silvercup Scaffolding pleaded guilty in November to a criminal charge.

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