Anonymous Upper West Side Renter

We live on the second floor of a gracious pre-war rental building that occupies a corner on the Upper West Side.  In June of 2006, after a small chunk of something fell from on high to the sidewalk (causing no injury, as far as I know), a scaffold and high wood fence immediately went up on one side of the building at the second floor, where all such structures seem to go. 

Whether it went up to protect pedestrians or the landlord from litigation by pedestrians, tenants were told only that the situation would be fixed and "pointing" done to the facade.