Falling air conditioner injures man in East Village

An air conditioner plunged from a sixth-floor apartment window in the East Village Tuesday, striking a café awning and sending the canopy into the path of a 67-year-old man who was walking his dog.

Anthony Franzese, sustained minor injuries around 8:30 a.m. when the unit fell from his apartment building, 65 Second Ave., from which he was reportedly facing eviction Thursday.

He was listed in fair condition at Bellevue Hospital Center.

Officials hit the building’s owner, Xenon Chernyk, with a violation for failure to maintain the building.

A spokesman for the Department of Buildings said the agency does not specifically track incidences of fallen air conditioners. In 1988, a man was killed by an air conditioner that fell from a seventh-floor window on East 23rd Street.

The unit fell from the apartment of Bruce Fuller, 49, who sometimes watches Franzese’s dog.

“I don't know how it fell. But I feel very guilty,” Fuller told the New York Post.