Manhattan crane collapse on Upper East Side
Second deadly construction accident in two months
May 30, 2008 -- A high-rise construction crane became unhinged and collapsed onto a 20-story apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side at approximately 8 a.m., raining tons of steel, brick and shattered glass onto the intersection below. It is the second Manhattan crane collapse in two months, according to authorities.
Two persons died and two were seriously injured at the construction accident scene, on the northwest corner of 91st Street and First Avenue. It was still too early to determine the exact number of victims, but officials said that the two men who died were construction workers. The cause of the accident is still undetermined.
The crane was being used to build a new high-rise condominium tower, known as the Azure. The company building the high-rise is the Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corporation of Elmont, on Long Island, according to the New York Times and city records.
The doomed crane crashed into the north side of 354 E. 91st Street, clipping off several outdoor balconies. Sidewalk and street wreckage from the construction accident was so great that it required police to block off traffic for some 20 city blocks to let medical personnel, firemen and police search for more survivors under the twisted steel and mortar.
This was the second crane accident in Manhattan this year. Seven people died just two months ago when another tower crane fell on East 51st Street, between First and Second Avenues.
Ironically, city officials announced just days earlier that they would no longer require inspectors to be on hand at construction sites involving cranes, opting instead to use spot checks and meetings to brief workers on proper safety procedures.
A serious construction accident can change your life. You can incur expensive hospital and other medical bills, lose income because of your injury, and in some cases, can find that your injury means you may not be able to return to the same kind of work for a long time.
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see also:
NYC construction fatalities
Construction-related accidents lead on-the-job fatalities in NYCTwenty-four fatal accidents in the NYC construction industry last year
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