Last July, a woman died in an apartment across the street when a girder from the site crashed down.
Times Square’s 50-story Conde Nast tower is cursed with bad luck, construction workers and firefighters said yesterday after a blaze became the latest in a series of the building’s mishaps.
Officials said window insulation caught fire on the 28th floor of the glass-domed skyscraper, but the flames were quickly contained and put out by 121 firefighters.
“When the call came in we knew exactly where to go,” a fire chief said diplomatically.
“It’s cursed,” a firefighter said, half-seriously, about the site.
The building gained notoriety last July when an construction elevator shaft and scaffolding collapsed, sending a girder crashing into an apartment hotel across the street, killing 85-year-old Theresa Feliconio.
A month earlier, a carpenter died when he was squeezed between the elevator shaft and building scaffolding.
Other, non-fatal incidents at the West 43rd Street building include:
*A 40-foot boom crashed onto a parapet and sent chunks of granite to the street.
*A crane lifted a truck’s payloader before it was cleared, again dropping granite to the sidewalk.
*A 30-foot-long piece of aluminum broke off the tower’s north facade and fell onto the street.
Some of the 600 construction workers at the site yesterday noted the run of bad luck.
“I guess it’s getting a bad name,” said Steve Michaels, who was directing pedestrians away from shattered glass caused by the fire.
“I think there’s an old Indian burial ground underneath,” joked a firefighter.