The tragic NYCHA handyman killed by a falling tree in Brooklyn was known as “Mr. Fix-it” and working overtime when he died in his brown rain boots, which tearful residents recognized his body by.
Devoted public-housing maintenance man Leighton Brown, 56, generously helped scores of tenants in the Cypress Hills Houses over more than a decade on the job, residents said.
“He was wonderful. All the tenants of Mr. Brown, he was just like, Mr. Fix-it,” said Robin Howard, 67.
“Even if he was on lunch, you could approach him and say, ‘Wow, such and such is wrong in my apartment.’ And he was like, ‘OK, I’m on lunch, but give me a few minutes and I’ll run by and see what I can do.’
“Everybody, everybody says he’s the best person that they ever had out there.”
Tenant Kevin Duran said his friend Brown recently came by to change a shower head and told him a secret.
“He said, ‘Kev, don’t tell anybody yet because I haven’t talked to all my people here,’” Duran said.
“He said, ‘I just got my transfer approved and I just got my promotion. This is my last week here.’ That’s what he said to me.”
The good-natured jack-of-all-trades continued working Saturday even as a devastating nor’easter descended with winds that knocked down several trees in the development — including the one that killed him.
A resident who identified herself as “Ms. Henry” told The Post on Sunday that she saw Brown that morning working overtime outside his regular shift and wearing his knee-high brown rain boots amid the appalling weather.
Henry said that when she heard a tree fell on someone, she rushed downstairs and — to her horror — spotted Brown’s boots on the mortally wounded man being rushed off by emergency workers.
“When I see him in the ambulance, and I looked at the boots, I already knew that it was [Brown].” she said.
“He was a well-known man because he worked in every-f—ing-body’s apartment that’s on this side of the development. Everybody knew Mr. Brown.”
At least three other trees fell in the NYCHA development, where crews worked to clear them Sunday and tenants grappled with the loss of their “Mr. Brown.”
Brown had family back in the island of Jamaica and a son in Connecticut, who was expected to arrive Monday, residents said.
