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Four children have plummeted from city windows in the past five months, a disturbing trend that has some politicians calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to “focus on the basic, everyday issues” facing New Yorkers instead of “needless political theater.”
Miraculously, all four children survived their falls.
The most recent fall happened Monday in The Bronx when Dylan Moquete, who turned 5 in July, was critically injured when he tumbled out the family’s fifth-floor window at 30 Buchanan Place, police sources said.
The child’s mom left the day before to travel to the Dominican Republic — and he was being watched by his 22-year-old sister, police sources said.
Dylan crawled out the window around 7 p.m. while his sister was cooking in the kitchen and believed he was in bed, the sources said.
The boy landed on the pavement 50 feet below, and was taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in critical condition.
“He has multiple fractures,” said a family friend who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“Thank God his vital organs were not affected,” she said. “The trash that was there . . . cushioned his fall. He is out of danger.”
The friend said the boy was able to get out the window beause the guard wasn’t installed right.
None of the apartment’s windows were compliant with the 50-year-old city law that requires window guards in all windows that aren’t emergency exits in apartments where children under 10 live, a Health Department spokesman said.
The windows “were not properly guarded as required because they allowed a space of more than 4.5 inches,” the spokesman said.
The other cases include:
- A 5-year-old autistic Bronx boy tumbled out of a third-floor window at 484 East 167th St. on April 6 in Morrisania. There was no window guard because the window faced a fire escape, officials said. The mother told reporters she had asked her landlord for a window gate, which is removable, but he refused.
- A 3-year-old girl who fell from a second-story window at 64-06 Myrtle Ave. in Glendale, Queens, around 6:45 p.m. May 27. The homeowner was not required to follow the window guard rule because it’s a two-family home and the law only applies to multi-unit buildings.
- A 1-year-old boy fell from a fifth-floor window at 593 Oak Terrace in Mott Haven on July 17, cops said. The baby, who didn’t live at the address, was alert and conscious when first responders arrived. After the fall, “building management installed guards in the apartment . . . at the Health Department’s direction,” the spokesman said.
During the fiscal year that ended June 30 — which included the first six months of the Mamdani administration — HPD says it issued at least 5,868 window-guard violations in the city. That’s a 17% drop from the previous fiscal year when HPD reported issuing more than 7,045 of the violations.
City Councilman Phil Wong (D-Queens) told The Post the city should do a review to determine if its window guard law is being enforced properly.
“Four children falling from windows in just a few months is deeply troubling, and the city should immediately review whether existing window-safety laws are being properly enforced and whether any gaps need to be addressed,” Wong said.
“Instead of fixating on international or national politics and TikTok videos, this administration needs to focus on the basic, everyday issues of governing that may not always be flashy or grab headlines, but matter enormously to New Yorkers.”
Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) pointed out that the mayor “campaigned on making life better for tenants.”
“But instead he’s spent the last eight months yapping about [Israel Prime Minister] Netanyahu and taking credit for things that were put in place before he ever came into office,” Ariola said, adding that Mamdani should stop the “needless political theater.”
A city Health Department spokesman said, “We have not seen an increase in window falls this year compared to the last five year. For over 50 years, New York City’s window guard laws have helped prevent countless falls. Before the law went into effect, hundreds of children fell from windows each year. That number has remained in the single digits for at least the last five years.”
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