Drastic undercounting of construction site fatalities during city's hyperdevelopment last year

THE CITY

A least a dozen construction workers died on the job in New York City last year — but building owners and contractors reported only a single fatality, THE CITY has learned.

A 2017 city law requires building owners or contractors to report all deaths and injuries on their construction sites to the Department of Buildings.

But they’ve fallen far short – without facing any penalty, so far.

The one reported death was that of Over Paredes in November, which was filed by the general contractor at 859 Myrtle Ave. in Brooklyn, according to DOB records.

Worker deaths that went unreported include some that made headlines: Ju Cong Wu, who fell nine stories down an elevator shaft during a hotel project in Manhattan, and Luis Almonte, who was crushed under a brick wall at a Sunset Park worksite.

The DOB has not yet cited any company for failing to report.

The department will begin issuing $2,500 initial violations to building owners who do not report deaths or injuries beginning June 1, agency spokesperson Joseph Soldevere said after THE CITY inquired about enforcement.

“Developers need to be aware that we will be holding them to their obligations under the law and taking all appropriate enforcement actions if they fail to meet those obligations,” he said in a statement.

Owners also could face fines of $1,000 for each day they fail to submit the reports, Soldevere said.

The law went into effect immediately after it was signed in May 2017. Soldevere attributed the delay in enforcement to a slew of new construction safety-related laws — 50 since January 2017 — that has stretched the agency thin.

“We’re implementing dozens of new laws and have had to allocate our resources among many major priorities,” Soldevere wrote.

Private construction is the most lethal industry in New York City, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which counted 20 deaths in 2017. The bureau’s 2018 tally is not yet available.

The building in the picture is the site where Gregory Echeverra got killed when a crane collapsed and a counterweight fell on him three weeks ago. It's not known if the developer reported this to the DOB.

De Blasio to announce new crane safety regulations

From CBS 2:

Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce safety improvements to crane operations on Sunday, after a deadly collapse in TriBeCa that left one dead and several wounded.

The collapse happened just before 8:30 a.m. Friday on Worth Street near Church Street. Cell phone video captured the moment the massive crane fell to the street.

David Wichs, 38, was killed instantly as he walked along Worth Street. Three others were injured, including 73-year-old Thomas O’Brian, who suffered a head injury.

The collapse happened as the crew was lowering the crane due to high winds. A veteran operator was inside the control cab when it flipped upside down. The crew was trying to lower the arm into the safety position – an upside-down V – right over West Broadway.

Instead, the 56-year-old operator lost his battle to control the crane and it collapsed.

The operator, identified as Kevin Reilly, of Port Jefferson, has been questioned about how he lost control of the crane. Sources told 1010 WINS’ Roger Stern that Reilly probably saved lives by moving the crane away from buildings and onto the street.

There have many crane collapses in recent years

From PIX11:

New York City Comptroller Scott Springer has released two reports since 2014, and he said only eight of 65 safety recommendations have been fully implemented by the Department of Buildings since 2008. And Stringer listed a number of “high profile” collapses or accidents that have happened, involving cranes, in the past 10 years.

Crane collapse in Manhattan; deaths feared

From the Daily News:

Two people were wounded — possibly fatally — as a construction crane came tumbling down onto a lower Manhattan Friday morning, officials said.

The crane fell on at least one car when it plunged down on Worth St. near Church St. around 8:30 a.m. in Tribeca, leaving a person trapped inside.

Crazy scene! Crane just collapsed in TriBeCa #nyc pic.twitter.com/uUFjaYIlci

— Keith V Smith (@KVSaint) February 5, 2016

Crane king will pay heavy penalty

From the Times Ledger:

James F. Lomma, a Whitestone resident once known as New York’s king of cranes, will have to pay over $96 million in total damages to the families of two victims from a 2008 crane accident.

In two separate jury decisions in State Supreme Court in Manhattan , Lomma and his company were held responsible for the deaths of two people killed when a crane collapsed in Manhattan. The families were awarded two installments of approximately $48 million each—the first for their economic losses, pain and suffering; the second for punitive damages in civil cases.

On May 28, 2008, the horizontal arm of a 240-foot crane began to circle and then snapped off, launching the cab and upper portion of the arm into a building on 91st Street and First Avenue. The crane’s operator, Donald C. Leo, and a construction worker, Ramadan Kurtaj, were both killed.

The decisions concluded a marathon ten-month civil trial.

Operator and contractor at fault in crane collapse

From Crain's:

A crane operator and a contractor didn't inspect equipment, failed to take proper precautions and ran the rig unsafely before it collapsed while building a New York City apartment tower and injured seven construction workers, officials said Wednesday.

Crane operator Paul Geer and contractor Cross Country Construction have each been cited with five violations stemming from the Jan. 9 collapse, which occurred as the crane tried to lift more than double its capacity, the city Buildings Department said. Mr. Geer and the company each face at least $64,000 in fines; the developer and a site safety manager also were cited with a violation apiece.

The developer, TF Cornerstone, and site safety manager Arthur Covelli have been cited with failing to safeguard people and property during construction, a single violation that carries at least $2,400 in fines, officials said.

Buildings Department records showed crane work at the site remained halted Wednesday, but TF Cornerstone said it believed the stop-work order and violation were being resolved. The company has said "site safety is always our first priority."

It's an epidemic

From the Daily News:

The sudden collapse of a 380-foot construction crane in Queens this month surprised laborers working below.

But the image of the huge device crumpled across a Long Island City construction site on Jan. 9 was depressingly familiar — part of a recent spike in crane accidents that has plagued the city, a Daily News investigation has found.

Records reveal owners who aren’t maintaining the huge machines and crane operators who aren’t using them safely.

The News found multiple examples since 2010: A laborer lost fingers because a crane job wasn’t properly supervised. A worker’s leg was crushed when a crane knocked a load of concrete onto him. A worker was knocked off his perch by a swinging load and fell 32 feet.

In the past few years, cranes have tipped over, smashed into buildings and dropped huge payloads. Operators have swung bundles of steel over busy city streets and picked up loads much heavier than their machines can handle.

And it’s getting worse.

Lifting a load too heavy

From NBC:

A crane collapse in Queens Wednesday is being attributed to error on the part of the crane operator, officials say.

The crane collapsed at a construction site at 46-10 Center Blvd. in Long Island City Wednesday afternoon, behind the famed neon Pepsi-Cola sign, injuring seven people, including three construction workers who had to be extricated.

Buildings Department Commissioner Robert Limandri said it appears the crane operator attempted to lift a load of 23,900 pounds on the crane, more than double the weight capacity for the crane.

Limandri said the operator was unable to see the load being lifted and he was apparently trying to lift the materials outside the approved loading zone.

The operator's license has been suspended, Limandri said. A stop work order for crane operations at the construction site remains in effect while the investigation continues.

Crane collapse in LIC

From Daily News:

The crane tipped at 46th Ave. and Center Blvd. in Long Island City about 2:20 p.m., authorities said. Three of the injuries were serious, authorities said. Two of the injured workers were taken to New York-Presbyterian Cornell hospital and five to Elmhurst Medical Center.

Investigators were trying to determine what caused the equipment to collapse.

The crane is owned by New York Crane, whose owner, James Lomma, was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide charges stemming from the 2008 crane collapse on the Upper East Side that killed two construction workers.

Collapsed crane had bad history

That dangling crane on W57th Street, owned by Bovis Lend Lease, has been tethered to the building, but CBS New York details its dubious past: • On Sept. 21, the safety manager at the site complained to the Buildings Department that the crane was leaking oil onto an adjacent building; • On May 18, the safety manager said while the crane was moving a panel, a gust of wind rotated it and the panel crashed into a 10th floor window. • On April 19, the ball on the end of the crane came loose; • On March 14, allegations were of misuse were issued when the crane was lifting beams over the sidewalk. • On Feb. 27, unsafe crane conditions were reported; • On June 15, 2011, there were reports that the crane was not installed properly.

Bloomberg covering for shady construction company

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"Look into the Bovis Lend Lease fiasco near Carnegie Hall: the crane dangling from the Billionaires nest on top of the building under construction is managed by Bovis Lend Lease which was fined 53 million dollars for contract fraud. They are one of Bloomberg's preferred construction firms. In yesterday's press conference, Bloomberg was careful not to say a critical word about Bovis Lend Lease." - anonymous

Here's a clip about Bovis Lend Lease from the NY Daily News (April 2012):

Huge contractor Bovis Lend Lease hit with fraud charges for overbilling on jobs around city Company, which skirted charges in Deutsche Bank, allegedly padded overtime

JOHN MARZULLI, GREG B. SMITH
Tuesday, April 24, 2012

One of the world’s biggest contractors routinely inflated bills on high-profile construction jobs over the last decade, ripping off taxpayers and developers alike, prosecutors charged Tuesday.

Bovis Lend Lease - which has billions of dollars of public and private construction work around the city and world - was for the first time hit with criminal charges.
But the company, after dodging charges in the 2007 Deutsche Bank tower fire, will again avoid prosecution after paying $50 million in fines and restitution — and agreeing to clean up its act.

You may recall Bovis Lend Lease was also in charge of construction at the Trump Soho tower where a worker was killed as well as the demolition of the Deutsche Bank Building, where firefighters were killed. They also built Yankee Stadium and Citifield.

Good thing the mayor's got their back!

Crane collapses in high winds

From WPIX:

High winds from Hurricane Sandy's approach damaged a large crane atop the 75-story skyscraper One57, leaving it dangling at 57th Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan as gusts from the massive storm begin to whip up.

Police are evacuating the area between Fifth and Eighth Avenues around 57th Street in anticipation that the arm could crash to the street. The arm of the crane, usually aimed skyward, has been doubled backward and is hanging limply with broken support beams jutting from all sides.

With wind speeds now approaching 90 mph as Sandy ramps up, it would be dangerous for workers to attempt to secure the crane at the top of the building.


A site in Williamsburg was also felled by the wind.

Crane company owner found not guilty

From Crains:

The owner of a construction crane company was cleared of all charges related to a 2008 fatal crane collapse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Daniel Conviser acquitted James Lomma and his two firms, New York Crane and Equipment Corp. and JF Lomma Inc., of manslaughter and other charges Thursday. The crane collapse at East 91st Street and First Avenue led to the death of two construction workers on the site.

Prosecutors had argued that the crane fell because Mr. Lomma hired a cheap and unknown Chinese company to repair the crane at the site. Mr. Lomma's attorneys said Mr. Lomma and his firm responsibly repaired the crane and therefore did not cause what they called the tragic accident. If Mr. Lomma had been found guilty in the non-jury trial, he would've faced five to 15 years in prison.

Prosecutors said that Mr. Lomma did not follow city inspectors' requirements for the repairs.

Same inspector worked on previous crane collapse

From Fox 5:

The inspector that gave his OK on the crane that collapsed this week apparently checked the crane that collapsed in 2008, killing two people.

Buildings Department inspector Patrick McGarrigle only did a partial inspection of the crane that collapsed on April 3 at the 7 train construction site, which killed one worker.

According to the New York Post, McGarrigle was also the last worker to look at the Upper East Side tower crane that fell in 2008.

McGarrigle joined the NYC Department of Buildings in 2004.

Worker on 7 extension killed in crane collapse

From the NY Times:

A 170-foot crane at a construction site for the extension of the No. 7 subway line collapsed on Tuesday night in Manhattan, killing one worker and injuring four other people in an eerie reminder of two fatal crane accidents in the city four years ago.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Emergency workers removed an injured man on Tuesday after a crane collapsed at the construction site for the extension of the No. 7 subway line.

It appeared that the accident occurred when the upper section of the crane broke off just before 7:30 p.m., during work on the extension at 34th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. A Fire Department spokesman said an 80-foot section and a 40-foot section from the crane fell.

It came down “like a dinosaur,” said a worker from the construction site who was waiting at Bellevue Hospital Center, where at least one victim was being treated.

One city official said there was some speculation among investigators at the scene that something in the back of the crane had snapped, causing it to become unbalanced.

City knew about crane repair

From the NY Post:

City officials have thrown a huge monkey wrench into the upcoming criminal and civil trials in the fatal 2008 Upper East Side crane collapse — a newly “discovered” letter that appears to implicate the Buildings Department as having been far more informed about the status of the death-trap crane than they’d let on.

“We found it in an old file cabinet,” city lawyer Michael Tobin told Manhattan Civil Court Justice Paul Feinman yesterday, during a hearing on a wrongful-death suit brought by the victims’ families.

The letter is dated March 2008, just months before the collapse killed two workers as it plummeted 20 stories down onto East 91st Street, according to details revealed at the proceeding.

Federal, state and city investigators have unanimously attributed the crane’s collapse to a cheaply repaired crack in the crane’s “turntable,” a bearing which allows the crane’s cab and boom to pivot.

In the letter, accused killer crane-magnate James Lomma tells his friend and onetime employee, Michael Carbone — the DOB’s then-chief crane inspector — that the turntable has been repaired. Lomma goes on to refer to previous discussions he and Carbone had concerning the repair and concludes the letter by telling Carbone that he should feel free to stop by and check out the repair any time he’d like.

The letter is significant because Carbone and other city officials have insisted in civil depositions that they’d had no such communication from Lomma, and that they had been in the dark about the repair ever getting completed, lawyers for the two slain workers complained in court today.

Crane rigger not guilty in crane collapse

From NY1:

A construction crane rigger has been cleared of all criminal charges in connection with a deadly crane collapse in Manhattan two years ago.

William Rapetti faced charges of manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault and reckless endangerment.

The judge issued his ruling this morning.

Crane operator loses license

From the Daily News:

The city Buildings Department on Sunday yanked the license of the operator of a 25-story monster crane that collapsed in Manhattan's Financial District.

Crane operator Christopher Cosban "failed to leave the crane in the safest position possible at the end of the work day," contributing to its Saturday night collapse, Buildings Department spokesman Tony Sclafani said.

Cosban failed to lower the hydraulically operated boom of the mobile crane as low as he should have, creating a serious hazard, sources familiar with the probe said.

Investigators hauled the 360,000-pound crane onto a truck and removed it for investigation.

During the day Saturday, the 250-foot crane was hoisting air conditioning equipment to the top of the building, but it was not in operation when it crashed.

Cosban's negligence contributed to the mishap but may not have been the only cause, Sclafani said. Buildings Department investigators also were probing possible mechanical failure.

The crash also is under investigation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Crane collapse in lower Manhattan

NEW YORK (AP/1010 WINS) -- A fire official says a listing crane has struck the side of a 25-story building in lower Manhattan.

The fire official said Saturday there were no injuries after the crane hit the 23-story parapet of the building near 80 Maiden Lane. A parapet is a barrier that extrudes from the side of the building and can be decorative.

The official says it's unclear whether the building was damaged.

He says at least 6 trucks responded to the area and that some traffic is being diverted and streets have been closed.

As the Village Voice points out, this is the HQ of the NYC Department of Investigation!

Crane owner indicted on manslaughter charges

From Fox 5:

JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press Writer

A crane company owner has been indicted on manslaughter and other charges after one of his 200-foot rigs collapsed and killed two workers in Manhattan in 2008.

Prosecutors announced the indictment against James Lomma on Monday. It also names two of Lomma's companies, New York Crane & Equipment Corp. and J.F. Lomma Inc.

A former mechanic with New York Crane & Equipment also was indicted.

Defense lawyers didn't immediately return calls.

The top of the giant crane snapped and crashed onto an apartment building in May 2008.

It happened a little more than two months after another crane collapsed elsewhere in Manhattan and killed seven people.