Glass panel falls, kills worker on job site

From CBS 2:

A security guard was killed and a worker was hurt when a large panel of glass fell at a construction site near Central Park Saturday morning.

The FDNY said it responded to calls for a construction related accident at 217 West 57th St. just after 10:30 a.m.

When medics arrived they observed that a large glass panel had fallen onto 67-year-old Harry Ramnauth.

He was rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A 27-year-old construction worker was hurt, as well. His injuries are believed to be non-life threatening.

Police said the glass panel was in the process of being moved when it fell and crushed the 67-year-old, who was working as as security guard at the location.

The incident remains under investigation.

The property already had a stop work order in effect when this happened.

Brooklyn roof collapse injures 6

From the Daily News:

Six construction workers were hurt, two seriously, when a load of cinderblocks sparked a partial collapse at a Brooklyn building Tuesday morning, officials said.

The half dozen hardhats suffered head, arm and chest injuries when the roof of the Crown Heights building gave out from under them about 9:45 a.m.

One construction worker suffered a compound fracture to his left leg and needed to be carried out of the building, a source said.

“A concentrated load of cinderblocks was placed on the roof level in a concentrated area and it was too much weight,” said FDNY Brooklyn Borough Commander Assistant Chief Dwayne Cartwright. “It collapsed into the basement.”

Hi-tech building enforcement happening

From the Daily News:

The non-union Rhode Island-based Gilbane is currently building all over the city, including Hudson Yards on the far West Side and an expansion of New York-Presbyterian Hospital on the Upper East Side. After the crowbar incident, the Department of Buildings searched its internal system to locate every Gilbane site in the city.

They found 14 sites, and over the span of four weeks, inspectors were able to gain access to 12. There they uncovered 49 hazardous violations and issued 13 partial or full stop-work orders at four locations.

At one, a Gilbane site in Hell’s Kitchen, where luxury condos are under construction, inspectors were forced to issue partial stop-work orders three times within a month. They also learned a worker at the site had been hospitalized in April after injuring his head while delivering sheetrock.

The Gilbane sweep is part of a new tech-savvy approach Buildings Commissioner Rick Chandler is taking to find and shut down dangerous job sites citywide. Currently the public can check the safety of a site via the department’s public records system by entering the site address. Looking at a contractor’s safety record at multiple sites is impossible.

Eight months ago, the department's chief of enforcement, Tim Hogan, began mining inspection data to find contractors with patterns of unsafe conditions.

Officials say Gilbane got the message. During the first week of inspections, 12 Gilbane sites produced 19 hazardous violations and six stop-work orders. By week four, the sweeps produced nine violations at six sites and only one stop-work order.

Hassan chopped!

From DNA Info:

The city has suspended the contractor and superintendent in charge of a work site where a construction collapse last week trapped and seriously injured three workers, officials announced Wednesday.

Ideal Builders and Construction and its superintendent Fazal Hassan were suspended following the June 20 incident at 31-25 28th Road, where the Department of Buildings accused the company of "cutting corners" while building a third-story addition on an existing home.

Officials say Hassan allowed crews to "improperly" load cinder blocks and other heavy equipment onto the newly built third floor, which wasn't stable enough to support the weight.

The floor collapsed, sending the materials crashing through the building's second and first floors, trapping and critically injuring three construction workers, including one man who was pinned under the debris for nearly two hours.

Officials say Hassan — the construction superintendent at the site, as well as at 10 other projects in the city — should have first had an engineer assess the third floor to make sure it was structurally sound.

The DOB is in the process of shutting down work at more than 60 construction sites that Hassan is associated with, according to a spokesman.

Injured construction workers face multiple surgeries

From NBC:

Three construction workers are expected to survive after a building collapsed on top of them in Astoria, Queens. Marc Santia reports.

OSHA is investigating.

Horrific construction accident in Astoria

From NBC:

A crane dropped a materials load into a renovation site in Queens on Tuesday afternoon, injuring three construction workers, including two critically, fire officials said.

Dozens of firefighters descended on a two-story brownstone on 28th Road, between 31st and 33rd streets, in Astoria just before 4 p.m.

"It was just a big explosion," said Astoria resident Marianna O'Neill. "It was loud and it was long."

A 37-year-old construction worker who managed to get out of the building on his own was transported to a hospital with serious injuries.

A 40-year-old construction worker was seen being pulled from the building on a stretcher shortly after 4 p.m. He or she appeared to be conscious but had critical injuries, officials said.

Around 5:30 p.m., firefighters were still working to free a 28-year-old construction worker who was trapped under "a few thousand pounds of construction materials in the basement of the building," FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said at a press conference, adding that the man's legs were under 1,200-pound beams.

Fire officials said that neither a crane nor a crane boom collapsed. They said a load of materials that had been placed on the roof of the building for renovation collapsed, falling all the way to the ground floor or basement. A large hole could be seen in the roof of the building.

The building is in the process of being converted from a two-family house to a three-family house, according to the Dept. of Buildings database.

Worker falls off scaffold and dies

From the Daily News:

A worker took a fatal three-story plunge from a scaffolding outside a Brooklyn building Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

The 58-year-old man was on a platform at the building on Nostrand Ave. near Linden Blvd. in East Flatbush at 12:45 p.m. when he fell , police said.

He suffered severe head trauma and died at Kings County Hospital, according to police. His name was not released.

The city Buildings Department website shows the FDNY requesting an inspection after finding a “loose scaffold” after the fall Sunday. A Buildings Department spokesman said the tragic incident remains under investigation.

Municipal parking lot construction error crushes worker's legs

From NBC:

A construction worker's legs were crushed when a seven-ton hammer came plunging down on him at a job site in Queens Wednesday, authorities say.

Fire officials on the scene said there was some sort of malfunction on a hammer that drives steel into the ground, and the hammer turned and fell.

The extrication at the site near Queens Boulevard and 82nd Avenue in Kew Gardens was tricky, firefighters say. But the worker was alert and conscious when he was transported from the scene.

Fort Totten floor fall-through

From CBS 2:

A city worker fell through the floor of a crumbling old building in Queens.

The parks employee and his crew were sent in to clean after someone else decided the structure was safe.

The inside of the old building on the grounds of Fort Totten — a former U.S. Army site — has seen better days.

It’s now dilapidated and deserted.

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation employee Cory Credell said on Monday, he was asked to go inside and clean it up after the department’s health and safety team deemed the site safe for the job, CBS2’s Valerie Castro reported exclusively Tuesday night.

Once inside — wearing a paper mask he was given to protect his face — Credell said he knew it was trouble.

Animals had made the structure their home long ago.

Credell began to sweep the floors, but the weak structure gave way and he fell through.

Worker's life in jeopardy after concrete falls on him

From PIX11:

A construction worker is critically injured after being hit with falling concrete in Manhattan Saturday afternoon.

A captain for the FDNY said around 3 p.m., the worker was on the 20th floor at 317 Madison Avenue when he was hit in the head by falling concrete. The building was scheduled for demolition.

The worker was lowered down own out of the building in a shaft and taken to the hospital in critical condition.

MTA finally pays injured worker

From WPIX:

Werner Schuler has a small home in Queens. And he credits the MTA for that fact.

“Honestly, New York City Transit has been very good to me. It’s afforded me to buy a little home here you know and a life that I never thought I’d really have,” Schuler said.

But Schuler's patience with the MTA is wearing thin over a long overdue workers comp payment. Schuler hurt his knee at the Stillwell Avenue station in Coney Island in 2008. He was out of work for 54 weeks. He won his grievance. But after more than six years, the MTA still hasn’t paid him all he’s due.

Worker dies in Manhattan building collapse

From CBS:

One person was killed and another seriously injured when the interior of a building that was being demolished collapsed Friday morning.

The collapse took place at around 10:30 a.m. at 27 West 38th St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues.

The seriously injured worker from Northeast Service Interiors was trapped in the building’s basement for three hours.

The demolition had the proper permits. Work will stop until the city determines it can restart safely.

Contractor license yanked for first time

From the Daily News:

For the first time, the city has revoked the license of a bad-actor construction contractor for racking up a mountain of dangerous code violations, officials announced Wednesday.

MRMD NY Corp. was cited for more code violations than any other contractor in the city, running up $834,000 in fines for repeatedly putting workers and the public in danger at their job sites, officials said.

The company reached an agreement with the city Law Department back in November to clean up its act, but building inspectors kept finding more violations after that.

By last month MRMD had piled up another $600,000 in fines. Last week the city moved to revoke MRMD’s license after finding the company and owner, Michelle San Miguel, in default of the November agreement.

Construction accidents are on the rise

From the NY Times:

Eight people have died in construction-related accidents this year, according to the city’s Buildings Department, as many as in all of 2014; the year before, three died. Not since 2008, during the height of the last building boom, has the number of construction accidents been so high, when a rash of episodes, including two falling cranes, claimed 19 lives.

The number of accidents has also been on the rise, with 231 in 2014, up 24 percent from the year before. (Accident figures for 2015 were unavailable.)

Most in the industry agree that there is a simple equation at work: The more construction, the more danger.

Contractor falls down elevator shaft and dies

From NBC:

A contractor working on an elevator in Queens fell five stories to his death Thursday morning when his harness apparently malfunctioned and he plummeted down the shaft, law enforcement sources say.

The harness apparently malfunctioned as the man was working on the elevator from the fifth floor of what will become a new school on 42nd Street in Sunnyside. A man working from the fourth floor was hit by debris as his colleague fell, but his harness held, law enforcement sources say.

Worker falls into basement of demo project

From NY1:

Fire crews on Thursday responded to a construction site in Queens after a worker fell into the basement of a home that's being demolished.

It happened around 8:30 a.m. at a property located at 181-14 Kildare Road in Jamaica Estates.

Officials say the worker, who is said to be in his 30's, suffered a head injury during the fall.

He was transported to Queens Hospital Center.

The Department of Buildings ordered the work stopped until the fall can be investigated.

Here's what it used to look like:



What's coming?

"ONE FAMILY DWELLING. THE THREE FIXTURE BATHROOM LOCATED IN THE CELLAR SHALL BE USED SOLELY IN CONNECTION WITH THE DWELLING UNIT ABOVE."

Uh huh.

2 injured in building collapse

Form DNA Info:

A home that was under construction partially collapsed in Canarsie Friday afternoon, leaving two people hurt, one seriously, the FDNY said.

The collapse occurred at 867 E. 95th St., near Avenue D, just before 3:15 p.m., the FDNY said.

Of the five people who were working on the building, two suffered serious injuries but were expected to survive, FDNY Deputy Chief Stephen Moro said.

The collapse happened when the floor of the building — a three-story, two family home that was under construction — was overloaded with concrete blocks and other materials and then caved in, the Department of Buildings said.

The DOB issued a full stop work order on the site to continue investigating.

Does scaffolding law need to be reformed?

From Crain's:

Building owners and developers are gearing up for a major push in Albany to reform New York state's infamous scaffolding law. The law, which dates back to the late 1800s, was once a model of progressive safety standards on construction sites across the nation. More recently, however it has become a huge insurance headache for contractors who blame it for driving insurance rates to such levels that they are actually forcing up construction costs—and in some cases even stalling projects, according to the industry.

"I don't think there's a more important issue facing the development community right now," said Christopher Jaskiewicz, chief operating officer of the Gotham Organization, the fourth-generation real estate development firm.

Mr. Jaskiewicz was an organizer of a panel Tuesday morning before the Greater New York Construction User Council to discuss the issue. Speakers at the event held at Scandinavia House on Park Avenue argued that New York has put itself at an economic disadvantage as the only state with a scaffolding law, known as Section 240 of the state's labor law code. Whereas every other state puts an equal burden on the worker to ensure they are protecting themselves at work, New York places an absolute liability on the developer and contractors.

One example given was that if a worker falls or is injured by faulty scaffolding, the property managers are held liable regardless of unsafe behavior by the worker. Insurers typically make seven-figure settlements rather than risk an even bigger loss in court, but this has driven up the price of doing business. With New York City already the most expensive construction market in the country, developers and contractors are looking for any opportunity to reduce costs.

"We're not saying that workers shouldn't be protected, of course they should be, that's our top priority," said Louis Colletti, president of the Building Trades Employers Association, a contractor group. "We're just saying we want the ability to present evidence in a liability case that can exonerate us if the worker is at fault. Right now, we don't have that."

The labor unions were not represented at the panel, nor were trial attorneys. Both groups are the law's biggest backers. They have argued that if the contractors are doing their job, and the scaffolds and equipment is properly secured, they are free from fear of liability.

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.

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.