Workers finished installing scaffolding Wednesday morning around the Midtown building where a piece of falling facade killed a prominent architect — and said the structure was in dire straits long before the fatal accident.

Employees of Bronx-based Everest Scaffolding completed the metal scaffolding on the sidewalk in front of 729 Seventh Ave. just before 9 a.m.

One worker, who declined to give his name, called the building “ugly.”

“The limestone and stucco is just crumbling, you can see,” he said, holding debris in his hand. “It’s pretty bad. They had to wait ‘til someone died.”

Two Department of Buildings inspectors were on scene as the workers completed their task — making sure that the scaffolding extended 20 feet past the building’s doorway, ending in front of a neighboring ramen noodle house.

“It’s a decent shed, it went up fast,” an inspector told The Post.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “I was here yesterday. We wrote a violation and then we knocked it down from a Class 1 [the highest severity]. They’re lawyers, man.”

Erica Tishman, 60, was about a 10-minute walk away from construction project management firm Zubatkin Owner Representation, where she was vice president, when a piece of the building came loose around 10:45 a.m. Tuesday and fatally struck her.

City building records show that the property — 729 Seventh Ave. — was cited in April for “failure to maintain exterior building facade and appurtenances.”