I would like to ask everyone to keep the victims of the recent NYC crane collapse in your prayers. It appears that most where construction workers and a few residents/visiters that where in the adjacent buildings that where crushed. This is a Huge tragedy, one that will be scrutinized, criticized, analyzed, investigated, inspected and throughly studied by the engineering and construction community. The NYC Building Dept. is a very powerful force in NYC, and this will no doubt change some things in the near future.
Having been in the commercial construction business for 25 years, structural steel erection specifically, this touches my heart deeper than other things. I worked in NYC last year for several months and it just so happened that I visited another project very close to this specific site.
This is a very rare and unique accident, one that has never been seen before that I am aware of. Cranes have tipped over and/or collapsed many times before, but not quite like this case.
I also worked on a project called One Bryant Park in Midtown that had a tower crane 1150' tall. I happened to have the pleasure to be on the open, unfinished 55th floor as well as the roof structure that has a 150' spire on top of it (very exciting for me anyways), doing quality control inspections of the structural steel. What a fabulous view of NYC. Manhattan and the other Borroughs are experiencing a construction BOOOOM currently. There are many tower cranes up in NYC right now. The WTC site is booming and has many cranes of all types on it currently, with several more tower cranes to go up yet.
With the continued high rise construction in NYC, I pray that no more crane collapses occur, ever again. God be with the families.
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