Saturday, March 15, 2008

East Side crane collapse kills 4 people

A giant crane at least 15 stories tall has collapsed at a construction site in New York City.

It happened at 331 E 51st Street and Second Avenue.

The big, white crane has toppled across a street and crashed into the side of a skyscraper on Manhattan's East Side.

Police say four died and nine people were injured.


4 dead, 9 injured in NYC crane collapse

A towering crane toppled over at an East Side construction site Saturday, pulverizing a residential building and killing at least four people, authorities said.

Several others were missing after the crane sliced through two buildings and landed on a third. Firefighters and cops were desperately searching for any survivors trapped in the rubble Saturday evening.


Four dead in Manhattan crane collapse

Photo from Daily News

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

And the first thing that Bloomberg and Lancaster did was ______?

The Commissar fired who?

Lancaster fired who?

Oh, yeah. Now I get it. Those killed were little people. Who cares?

Anonymous said...

shame my prays go out to the victems and their famialies!

How do these jack up cranes work, how do they move them up? I mean I watched cranes start out on the ground then the move up floor by floor?

The video showed a lot of loose stuff on top of the building, how they gonna get that stuff down and secured?

Anonymous said...

It happened on the upper east side of manhattan, the have people on the news complaining about how shabby the crane looked to the , saying something needs to be done!......well it wasn't queens, brooklyn or the bronx, but just south of blommies hood , where many well healed live, you can bet that now the city might actually take action and admit thei is a prolbem, that they have not addressed!

My heart gose out to the victems and theirs.

Anonymous said...

If this "Robert Moses II" shithead Mayor doesn’t hire at least 200 inspectors on the spot after this (and let them do there jobs) he should be impeached !!
Bloomie is putting construction rush ahead of the lives of all New York City dwellers with his lax enforcement and inspection.

These builders and landlords are cutting corners to slap these buildings up to collect the big rent $$$.
Thats mass neglect with the lives of people, I beleive thats a felony.

Funny how this stuff usually happens on weekend construction when nobody from the city "with teeth" are around.

Anonymous said...

I found an intresting link when trying to research cranes, its the building of the world trade center, and part 2 shows the jack up cranes, its a good video doc. its from the american experiance, if you enjoy this sort of thing you may like this, and enjoy some old footage of NY as well.

just past the link into your browser and you need realplayer.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/newyork/sfeature/sf_building_pop_01_rm.html



Big H.

Anonymous said...

This is now getting out of hand. I can't ever remember so many major construction accidents occuring in such a short period of time. Did I hear Bloomie correct in saying that there were 13 complaints against this site, and that was "normal" for a job this size?

Does anybody care?

Anonymous said...

They call them Kangaroo cranes, the WTC cranes jacked themselves up from the core.
This this one (that fell)builds it self up with straps outside the building.
Its just horrible they could use these things around little building they know could not stand the weight of a fall.

Anonymous said...

I am a veteran of over 35 years in Tower Crane operating, climbing, etc. If the inspections showed no violation re: "tie off" impropriety it was because nothing was improper, I would suggest, but I do not know. I would say, though, that chances are the crane was erected according to specs. What took place, according to eye witnesses was a load was somehow dropped. This load took out a tie in. No doubt it would have been the upper tie in. Tie in is a horizontal brace fixing the crane's tower to the structure being erected. They are usually separated by several floors.. up to about 150'. As the tower crane is jumped, tie ins are added at the prescribed interval.

If the load that dropped landed on a tie in it was dropped from absolute minimum operating radius, since the tie ins are 'at' the tower. This luffing jib crane would have to have been boomed almost straight up. it's center of gravity was totally behind the tower, where the counterweights and machinery deck are. When the tie in was compromised it no doubt went over backward.

To suggest that neighbors looked up and spotted tie in problems last month, and that more inspections would have helped correct this scenario is not logical. The load being dropped is a huge no no in high rise const. work. That, I would suggest, caused the crane collapse. Inspectors know what they are looking at. The bracing was no doubt correct, but when eliminated, could not perform.

When climbing, these cranes add sections to the very top of the vert. tower (mast). it's like doing surgery on one's own belly. Very dangerous. Raising the mast section into position has the crane almost tipping over backward, as the counterweights in place to negate overturning forces at very far reaches are working against stability when boomed straight up. Losing the load affected the center of gravity wildly, shooting the cg even farther back for a split second, right at the time the tie in severed.

Don't say this shoddy work stuff unless its been diagnosed by review. Jobs of this scale really do commonly have so darned many citations it would amaze you. The best sites get written up. Nature of the beast. So huge, so many tools, light bulbs, fasteners. Thank God we have inspectors. We need more. God bless those poor guys who didn't make it.

Anonymous said...

It sound to me like that "35 year Tower Crane vet"
is a Bloomie/DOB planted poster.

What do you all think?

Well, it's good to know
that Mayor Midget's staff is still reading Queens Crap.

JET CM said...

Very well said! I wanted to rant about the neighbors qualifications to pass judgment but you said it much more diplomatically.

Anonymous said...

On the ground floor was a very shady bar with low ceilings and beautiful women who had a little more than alcohol in their systems.

That bar was called "Fubar"

Can we please have a moment of silence.....

Thank you. We will miss you "Fubar", we will miss you...