BRISTOL — High winds this past Sunday sent bricks from a downtown Bristol building crashing onto pavement below. Fortunately no one was injured.
Sometime after 5 p.m. on Nov. 17 high winds dislodged hundreds of bricks from the west wall of the structure, located at 24-26 Main St., building owner Cheri Jackman said. The bricks broke one of the windows in the building, which formerly housed The Village Corner Store.
Jackman wasn’t sure when the mess would be cleared.
“My husband kept cleaning them up, and they’ve been falling ever since,” Jackman said on Tuesday. “We can’t get out there to clean them up until it’s secure.”
The bricks fell into an alley between the structure and the National Bank of Middlebury that serves as a one-way entrance into the Shaw’s Plaza. Police cordoned off the area Sunday, and it remains closed.
The building houses Snap’s Restaurant and the newly opened Bristol Mexican Market. Both businesses remain open, though Jackman, who also operates Snap’s, said she had to relocate a tenant from a unit on the second floor close to the damage.
Jackman on Tuesday said an engineer was at the site to examine the extent of the damage to the building, which Jackman estimated to be at least a century old. The alley will remain closed to pedestrian and vehicular traffic until the structure is deemed safe.