Chunk of the Bellevue hits the street
The yellow signs in front of the Bellevue yesterday afternoon read "Caution: Falling ice," but it wasn't the ice that was falling.
The yellow signs in front of the Bellevue yesterday afternoon read "Caution: Falling ice," but it wasn't the ice that was falling.
A chunk of ornamentation, which appeared to be just a bit smaller than a bowling ball, fell from a top-story window and crashed into pieces on the Center City sidewalk below.
No one was injured by the falling debris, according to police and Anna Iredale, public relations director for the Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue.
Iredale said the Department of Licenses and Inspections visited the site shortly after the incident yesterday and felt it was an isolated incident. She said the building was inspected in the spring and will be inspected again, today, by contractors.
The sidewalk in front of the building and one lane of South Broad Street remained closed to traffic for several hours yesterday.
Hotel guests had to use a side door to enter the building but would have had to have done so anyway last night since the hotel closed its front door in case the Eagles had won and crowds had gathered, Iredale said.
In fact, Mike Goldenberg, who stumbled upon the police activity as he left the Bellevue gym, thought the yellow tape and officers were there as a preemptive measure against a riot in the event of an Eagles NFC championship.
When he realized what happened, he couldn't help but think of the Bellevue's storied history as the site of the first publicized outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease.
"This is where Legionnaires' came out of," Goldenberg said.
"So it's a dangerous building." *
