Leighton Brown, a 56-year-old maintenance supervisor for the New York City Housing Authority, was killed Saturday afternoon when a tree toppled on him during a powerful nor’easter that swept through the city, bringing down thousands of trees across the region.
What Happened
Brown was walking through a parking lot at NYCHA’s Cypress Hills Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, around 3:30 p.m. on September 26 when part of a large tree fell and struck him. The New York City Police Department confirmed the incident to PEOPLE. He was transported to One Brooklyn Health-Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in critical condition, suffering what police described as “trauma throughout” his body, and was later pronounced deceased.
Roy Worth, who works in the park where the incident occurred, said a jogger spotted Brown under the tree and rushed to alert others. “There was a guy that was jogging and must have seen him, the guy under the tree and he was like, hurry and get the cones,” Worth said. “There’s no way to survive that and they were pumping him for 15-20 minutes right there.”
David Ortiz, who lives in a nearby apartment complex, said he and his wife heard a loud bang before looking outside and seeing that the tree had come down. “He was already gone, you could tell he was gone,” Ortiz said. “That was a big, heavy tree that fell on top of him.”
The tree that killed Brown wasn’t the only one to fall that day — another nearby tree had come down around 9 a.m. the same morning. “It’s scary because you don’t know which tree is going to fall and I’m here cleaning the parks, it’s very scary,” Worth said.
A Life Cut Short on the Verge of a New Chapter
Friends say Brown, affectionately known in the neighborhood as “Mr. Fix-it,” was excited about a promotion and had told people it was set to be his last week working at the Cypress Hills complex. His neighbor Sam, who lives across the street from Brown in Canarsie, saw him shortly before the accident and asked for a hand with something. Brown told him he had to head back to work — he’d picked up an extra shift. He never made it back.
“I said to him, ‘you going to come and give me a hand?’ And he said he has to go back to work again, asked for an extra shift,” Sam recalled. Reflecting on their final exchange, Sam described it as bittersweet: “I said ‘it’s good to see you’ and he said ‘it’s good to see you, we don’t know when we’ll see each other again.'”
Remembered by His Community
Those who knew Brown described him as dedicated, kind, and deeply woven into the fabric of the community he served. Ortiz recalled Brown fixing a light in his apartment just days before the accident and joking with him about his dog. “He was very kind. He loved my dog. He was like, ‘I’m going to kidnap your dog one day.’ It’s so sad. Like I got goosebumps,” Ortiz said.
Tenant Kevin Duran echoed that sentiment: “Broke my heart. He was a person who would come in without question and he did his job and he did his job well.”
James Alcivar, president of NYCHA’s Cypress Hills Tenant Association, called Brown “one of the best employees that we had here at Cypress Hills Development.” He added: “If you had work that needed to be done in your house, he was the guy to call. He comes here dedicated. As you can see, this tragic accident, he was doing what he loved.”
Official Statements
NYCHA released a statement following the tragedy: “We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss and extend our heartfelt condolences to Mr. Brown’s family and the NYCHA community.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani also addressed the loss on social media: “Tonight, we are mourning the loss of one of our own after NYCHA employee, Leighton Brown, died while at Cypress Hills Houses in Brooklyn. My thoughts are with his entire family as they deal with this unimaginable loss. May he rest in peace, and may his service to our city never be forgotten.”
