Crane Collapses on Upper East Side [Manhattan]

[Homyrrh]

(from The New York Times (http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/crane-collapses-on-upper-east-side/index.html?hp))
May 30, 2008, 8:31 am
Crane Collapses on Upper East Side
By Sewell Chan

A crane being used at a construction site toppled over and crashed into another building at East 91st Street and First Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan around 8 a.m. on Friday, according to witnesses and officials. Scores of Fire Department trucks and emergency medical workers responded to the scene. At least two people were pulled out of the wreckage; it was not immediately clear whether anyone had been killed.

The Fire Department got the first 911 call at 8:06 a.m., with the caller saying a “crane was down,” said Firefighter Chris Villarroel, a spokesman.

He said units rushed to the scene and found the wreckage. “We pulled out two people,” said Mr. Villarroel. “We don’t know their condition.” It was unclear immediately if those rescued were construction worker or pedestrians in the street or in the building.

New York 1 news reported that the building under construction was the Azure, a 34-story high-rise at 333 East 91st Street. The crane apparently crashed into a white-brick apartment building at 1749 First Avenue, which houses a Duane Reade drug store on the ground floor. A call to the developer of the Azure, 1765 First Associates L.L.C. of Elmont, on Long Island, was not immediately returned.

The accident occurred only two months after a tower crane collapsed on East 51st Street between Second and First Avenues, killing seven people. The city’s buildings commissioner was forced out of her job and an extensive review of the city’s cranes was conducted in the aftermath of that accident, one of the worst construction disasters in the city’s recent history.
The New York Times is interested in reader photos of the accident; such photos should be e-mailed to cityroom.nyt@gmail.com.


What. The. Fuck!?!

How incompetent can the Buildings Dept. be if two cranes have fallen in as many months...in the nation's LARGEST CITY?!?! I all but live next door to the city!?!?!

Who can worry about terrorism when OUR OWN sky is falling on us? Is this 2008? Is this New York? What the fuck?

On anoother note, I found it interesting that the City Room at the Times has a Gmail address...

[Homyrrh]

(from The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/nyregion/30cnd-crane.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin#))
May 31, 2008
At Least One Killed by Crane Collapse in Manhattan
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
A crane toppled and collapsed onto a high-rise apartment building on East 91st Street on the Upper East Side on Friday morning, tearing off balconies and raining broken brick and shattered glass onto the street below, in the second Manhattan crane collapse in two months. At least one person, the operator of the crane, who was sitting in the cab as the structure fell, was killed, officials said.

At least two others were injured and taken to local hospitals, according to a fire department spokesman.

The crane, which was apparently being used for a construction project at 354 East 91st Street, snapped apart moments after 8 a.m., sending the top piece onto the white-brick residential building at the southwest corner of 91st Street and First Avenue.

The cab of the crane smashed into the top floor of the building, about 20 stories up, and cascaded down the north facade, knocking off balconies and leaving a swath of pockmarks down to a Duane Reade drug store, which sits on the building’s ground floor. The cab operator died at the scene, the police said.
The accident occurred just two months after a tower crane collapsed on East 51st Street between Second and First Avenues, killing seven people and prompting an extensive review of the safety of the city’s cranes.

Just this week, city officials said they would no longer require inspectors to be on hand at construction sites when a crane is erected or made taller, ending a policy put in place after the Midtown accident. The Buildings Department said on Wednesday that it would switch to a system of spot checks and “safety meetings” where workers would be briefed on proper procedures.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, speaking Friday morning in a previously scheduled radio interview, said the accident “is just unacceptable and we’ve got to figure out what happened here.”

“The construction industry obviously and real estate developers, they don’t want you to shut it down,” the mayor said, though he did not appear to have been fully briefed on the details of Friday morning’s accident. “But the bottom line is, number one is public safety, and we’re not going to tolerate any rate of accidents any higher than it has to be.”

The wreckage from the crane lay in the intersection, where a camp of ambulances, fire trucks and police personnel sprang up minutes afterward. Traffic was blocked off for 20 blocks around the accident. Some residents of the building peeked their heads out from windows to survey the damage.

Caitlin Reeves, 25, who lives in a corner apartment on the 10th floor of the damaged building, said she was in her bathroom brushing her teeth when she felt and heard an enormous rumble shoot through her apartment — the effects of the broken crane shearing off her balcony.

“I turned around and ran into my room and there were pieces of the wall and debris everywhere,” she said. “Then I turned around and yelled at my roommates to get out.”

One of her roommates, Hadley Jensen, a 23-year-old Los Angeles native, said she assumed the sound stemmed from an earthquake. “It sounded like there was a huge crash on 1st Avenue, but then we felt something shaking the bottom of the building,” she said.

As remnants of the crane continued to rain down on the street, the women fled their apartment and bounded down 10 flights of stairs to their dust-filled lobby, where dozens of residents were shouting and sobbing as they streamed out onto 91st Street. Ms. Reeves said the building was mostly occupied by families with small children. Like other residents interviewed on the street, she said the sight of the crane towering over her building each day gave her an uneasy feeling.

“Every morning I woke up and I could see the top of that crane pivoting and I kept thinking we’d be lucky to make it out of that apartment without it careening into us,” she said.

The building under construction was the Azure, a high-rise condominium tower; about 12 of the 34 planned stories had been completed. According to city records, the company that is building the Azure is the Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corporation of Elmont, on Long Island.

The Fire Department received the first 911 call about the collapse at 8:06 a.m., with the caller saying a “crane was down,” said firefighter Chris Villarroel. He said units rushed to the scene and found the wreckage.” We pulled out two people,” said Mr. Villarroel. “We don’t know their condition.”

It was unclear immediately if those rescued were construction worker or pedestrians in the street or in the building.


:(

[KcMsterpce]

What does this have to do with politics?

[Homyrrh]

What does this have to do with politics?
Strictly politics? Eh, probably not.

But I feel I have a right to be troubled and/or frustrated with the governance of the most populous municipality in the nation when, after firing their Building Supervisor two months ago aftee the same damn thing happened.

It's perturbing that the city administration cannot be competent or able enough to smoothly inspect and maintain their equipment; it should be noted as well that said equipment was a 20-story crane.

I just feel it's a strong showing for the lack of accountability in large city governance. I guess I could extend a much larger argument, like introducing the Sharpe James case. He was the Newark (NJ) mayor for twenty years, and two months or so ago, was indicted on corruption charges for double-dealing real estate to his extramarital girlfriend (Democrat btw, Heart Collector :D ) by selling them for dirt prices and allowing her turn turn somethign like a $600,000 dollar profit on a few commercial properties.

It isn't the corruption that is as irksome as the lack of checks and balances. Toppling cranes and mob-connected mayors can be prevented.

[SpoonMan999]

In California they are required to have an independent inspector as well as a state inspector...though since an independent decided to tell the world he didn't do his job right they just passed a bill to make the state contract all the work out...meaning I'll probably be losing my job when this actually starts.

[Homyrrh]

In California they are required to have an independent inspector as well as a state inspector...though since an independent decided to tell the world he didn't do his job right they just passed a bill to make the state contract all the work out...meaning I'll probably be losing my job when this actually starts.
Corruption is one thing. But one the corruption of paying people under the table not to inspect something like a crane, it challenges the gravest of intrinsic human morality.

[SpoonMan999]

My point is that the government should never be solely in charge of agencies like this. There should always be a check in place.

[Homyrrh]

My point is that the government should never be solely in charge of agencies like this. There should always be a check in place.
That makes sense enough. But regardless, there has to be some check in place.