Freak falling-debris death has NYC pedestrians ducking for cover

Freaked-out pedestrians are giving wide berth to the Seventh Avenue building that shed a chunk of its facade onto a prominent Manhattan architect and killed her Monday.

“I’m not walking there, not on that side.  I don’t know if something else is coming down,” said a shocked Glenn Swan, 50, a music producer whose studio is around the corner. “It could have been kids. A lot of families are walking around here right now. Anybody, it could have been anybody!”

Another passerby agreed.

“It could have been me,” said Himad Zafar, 40, an accountant in town on business. “I come to New York for work and I am staying in this area so I could have been walking by there.”

A piece of 729 Seventh Ave. came loose around 10:45 am and fatally struck architect Erica Tishman, 60, while she was on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 49th Street, cops have said.

Sara Director, an NYC-based attorney specializing in construction safety said proper inspections by the city — and appropriate follow-through from the building’s owners — should have prevented the tragedy.

“It’s every New York City tourist, pedestrian — it’s our worst nightmare,” she told The Post. “On the way to school, our children are walking under these buildings,” she added. “Is it safe? We don’t know.”

The building was cited by the city in April for “failure to maintain exterior building facade and appurtenances.”

Additional reporting by David Meyer