Attorney Daily - Your source for the most important legal news

A construction crane snapped and smashed into an apartment building with a thunderous roar on May 30, 2008, killing two workers in the city’s second such tragedy in 2 1/2 months and renewing fears about the safety of hundreds of cranes towering over the New York skyline.

The collapse happened despite stepped-up inspections and a shake-up in the city Buildings Department after the earlier accident, which killed seven people in March.

The 200-foot crane fell apart on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where contractors were building a 32-story luxury condo complex, about 12 stories high.

Scott Bair, a foreman who arrived at the site seconds after the crane fell, said several co-workers told him the crane had just dropped off a load of materials on the top of the building and was turning to pick up a load from the street when “the turntable popped off even though there are 16 bolts that hold it down. It could be an issue with the bolts.”

The turntable is a piece of equipment that helps the crane rotate.

Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said that investigators “will be focusing on a particular weld that failed” on the crane, and noted that the crane’s model, the Kodiak, is out of production and one of only four in the city.

LiMandri also suspended several crane operations in the city and called an emergency meeting of experts Saturday to address crane safety.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the accident “unacceptable and intolerable” but said the city appeared to have followed regulations. “Sadly, we have construction accidents all over the world,” he added.

With the city going through a supercharged building boom and an estimated 250 cranes in operation as of mid-March, New York has seen a series of deadly construction accidents. Nine people have died in crane accidents so far this year, versus none in all of last year, and two in 2006.

“Construction of buildings is out of control in this city,” City Councilman Tony Avella said. “How many people have to die before the mayor decides enough is enough?”

City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, who represented the neighborhood affected by the March collapse, said: “People shouldn’t live in fear walking near a construction site and certainly shouldn’t feel fear sitting in their living rooms.”

Buildings Department records said officials’ halted work at the Upper East Side site after the crane failed “load tests” on two straight days, April 22-23. However, the crane passed another test the next day. No violations had been issued in connection with the crane.

Department records also indicate several neighborhood complaints about cranes at the site in recent weeks. At least two callers had expressed concerns about parts of the crane extending past safety barriers. One complained that workers were hoisting heavy metal and concrete over the heads of pedestrians.

Inspectors found most of the concerns were unwarranted, and LiMandri said Buildings officials had inspected the crane twice this month.

The crane toppled just after 8 a.m., destroying a penthouse apartment across the street and knocking off balconies on the apartment building as it plunged 20 stories into a heap of twisted steel. The city said in a statement that the cab where the operator sits had separated from the crane’s tower.

“The sound was like a thunderclap. Then, an earthquake,” said Peter Barba, who lives on the seventh floor.

Killed were the crane operator, Donald Leo, 30, and another worker, 27-year-old Ramadan Kurtaj. A third construction worker was seriously injured, and one pedestrian was treated for minor injuries.

Construction foreman Scott Bair said one of the workers on his 40-man crew was taken to the hospital with his “chest slashed open.” His eyes filled with tears, Bair said his own life was saved because he left to get an egg sandwich for breakfast a block away just before the collapse.

“I thought, I’m hungry, and I want to go get something to eat and that saved my life,” he said. When he returned to the site, “Everyone was shook up and crying. These are some hardened men, but they were crying.”

Dan Mooney, a longtime New York crane operator who went to the scene after hearing about the accident, said he was stunned by what he saw.

Crane operators, Mooney said, generally need to handle their loads very carefully to keep the top-heavy machines from becoming unbalanced. If an operator tries to lift a load that is too heavy, too fast, it could pull the rig over or cause it to sway dangerously. Stopping short while swinging a very heavy load could cause the same problem, as could having a big load suddenly drop off the end of the crane.

“Any instability in the load could be a problem,” Mooney said.

Bloomberg said the crane was a different model from the one that collapsed in March. “It looks like a pattern, but there’s no reason to think there’s any real connection,” the mayor said.

Construction workers have died in recent weeks in crane accidents in Iowa, Missouri and Miami. In Washington, officials called for emergency inspections of its 40 cranes after Friday’s accident.

In New York, the general contractor on the project, Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corp., said Sorbara Construction, a subcontractor, was in charge of operating the crane. A woman who answered the telephone at Sorbara said no one was available to comment.

In the March 15 accident, contractors building a 46-story condominium near the United Nations about two miles from the site of Friday’s accident were trying to lengthen the crane when a steel support broke. A four-story townhouse was demolished and several other buildings were damaged.

Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster resigned under pressure a month later. The city also added extra inspections at building sites and required that its staff be on hand whenever the cranes were raised higher. But this week, the department said an inspector no longer had to be present.

Speaking from the scene, Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed that one construction worker was killed and two others seriously injured in this morning’s crane collapse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side the second deadly collapse this year.

The mayor said the crane atop a residential building under construction at 333 E. 91st Street appears to have fallen off at or near the 12th floor. The cab of the crane snapped off and the tower appears to have struck the building across the street at 354 E. 91st Street, smashing into a corner office, which is believed to have been unoccupied at the time. It then fell to the street below.

The crane operator was in the cab at the time of the crash. One pedestrian on the street below suffered minor injuries, but has since been treated.

Eight violations had previously been issued at the site, and an inspector had made a visit last weekend to oversee the crane being raised. Acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri says an inspector was also there yesterday after complaints of the crane being hoisted over the street. That complaint is still under investigation.

LiMandri says a team of engineers hired by the city in the wake of March’s crane collapse will investigate the accident.

“They will also look at the Department of Buildings construction code, they will look at OSHA regulations, they will look at national standards, and they will look at the current regulations scheme that goes towards crane safety and concrete operations,” he said. “In addition they will make recommendations as they see fit. And once that goes into effect we will not wait for a report, we will institute that on rolling basis.”

Bloomberg says it remains unclear why the top snapped off, but says the city will conduct an investigation. Hundreds of firefighters and rescue workers continue to search through the wreckage, but the mayor says there is no reason to believe anyone is under it.

This morning’s collapse comes on the heels of a major overhaul in the Department of Buildings after a crane collapse on March 15th killed seven people and damaged several area buildings in Manhattan’s Turtle Bay.

But, when asked what he believes is wrong with the DOB, the mayor defended the agency.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the DOB. DOB didn’t crash; it was the crane that collapsed,” said Bloomberg. “The question that we need to make sure is, ‘do we have the appropriate level of inspection and the appropriate regulations as to what kind of cranes you can use. Keep in mind that construction is a dangerous business and you will always have fatalities.”

The mayor added that while the two crane collapses within a short period of time may appear to be a pattern, but that there is no reason to believe they are connected. Also, the crane that collapsed this morning is a different kind of crane than the one that collapsed in March.

A construction worker at the site told NY1 that it is unclear why the crane collapsed.

“The tie-ins are still intact which means it was most likely a problem with the top of the crane. It must have been it couldn’t take the pressure,” she said. “But there were no loads on it, so we really don’t know why it would fall if there’s no loads. We didn’t have anything. It was swinging around by itself, so we don’t exactly know why it would fall like that.”

The worker added that all of the proper inspections had been conducted.

“They was on us like white on rice. We all had to wear harnesses. Most things that they normally wouldn’t tell us to do, we definitely had to do that,” she said. “We had inspectors every day, building inspectors, inspectors from our union to make sure we was doing everything correctly. We had inspectors from the bottom up. Local of itself had their own inspectors come in. So we really don’t know how this can happen ’cause they were on us.”

Area residents described a chaotic scene. Matt Bryant, a resident of the building at 354 East 91st Street that was hit by the crane says it hit the 23rd floor one floor above his apartment. Bryant says he heard a loud noise and felt shaking when the crane collapsed but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary before the collapse.

“The sound was like a thunderclap, like a big crack, like a lightning strike and then it felt like an earthquake was happening in the building,” added another resident. “The first thing I did was I immediately went to check on my neighbors the woman in the corner whose apartment was hit pretty bad by it. It blew out her window. Structurally it took out her terrace and she was in a panic state.”

A man from the same building said he had just stepped out when he got a desperate call from his girlfriend that the crane had hit and that water was flooding into the apartment.

“I was sleeping, so it felt like an earthquake and then I woke up and my wall was basically smashed out with glass,” added another resident in the building that was hit. “So, it was just glass everywhere. I could hear the people screaming outside. I looked outside there was fire. So I just got my roommate, got my dog and put clothes on and got out of there.”

A union representative for the New York City carpenters says one of his members was rushed to the hospital, but is said to be doing well.

“I was in my apartment, I had pictures falling off the wall, I thought it was an earthquake,” said the roommate. “Terrifying, absolutely terrifying, and then we were made to evacuate our building. It was awful, it was awful, my next door neighbor’s balcony completely wiped out, flooded apartment, it was awful. Awful.”

The mayor said the city’s first concern is to stabilize the area. Several buildings have been evacuated as a precaution because the vertical part of the crane is still standing and it remains unclear whether it is stable. He added that evacuated residents will be allowed to return at some point later today or tomorrow.

About 160 apartments altogether have been evacuated in the following seven buildings: 354 E. 91st Street (which is the building that was hit by the crane); and 400, 401, 403, and 404 E. 91st Street; and 1750, 1752, 1754 First Avenue.

The Red Cross also has several people on the scene and says it will provide shelter to those in need.

Many who spoke to NY1 said they were shocked that a crane collapse could happen just two and a half months after the deadly crane accident in March, which led to the arrest of a crane inspector and the resignation of DOB Commissioner Patricia Lancaster.

In April, the DOB launched a $4 million initiative to examine construction sites around the city, sending 20 engineering experts to investigate crane operations, concrete operations and excavations.

The city has added extra inspections at building sites and required that its staff be on hand whenever the towering cranes were raised higher, a process known as a jump. Those procedures are still being revised.

Before today’s crash, 13 people had already died in construction related accidents around the city one more than all of 2007.

A number of streets remain closed in the area. Drivers going up First Avenue are being detoured at 86th Street. Crosstown traffic is not allowed to turn on 1st avenue between 79th and 86th Streets.

The MTA says that due to the crane collapse there are some bus service changes in the area. The M15, M31, M86, and X90 are all on detour.

On May 29, 2008, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) was granted approval for its government-arranged fire-sale purchase of Bear Stearns Cos. (BSC), shuttering the 85-year-old Wall Street giant and putting a projected 60% of Bear Stearns’ 14,000 employees out jobs.

Nearly 84% of Bear Stearns’ shareholders voted to approve the takeover during a 10-minute meeting at the firm’s New York headquarters. The gathering was chaired by Chairman James “Jimmy” Cayne, who was replaced as chief executive by Alan Schwartz in January.

“I personally apologize for what has happened,” Cayne, 74, told shareholders, according to a person who attended the meeting. “It’s a sad day.” Outside the building, some Bear Stearns workers and shareholders vented their frustration by writing comments on a portrait of Cayne, including “My blood is boiling” and “Should we raise more capital?”

The sale, announced back in March, capped an eight-month slide in the company’s fortunes that began in July with the collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds that invested in securities linked to sub-prime mortgages. Those failures caused investors to doubt the value of any asset linked to the mortgage market, Bear Stearns’ biggest business.

On March 14, the Federal Reserve agreed to lend $13 billion to Bear Stearns through JPMorgan to prevent the collapse of the firm, which faced an exodus of clients and lenders. Facing a potential bankruptcy, Schwartz was forced to accept a $2-a-share offer from JPMorgan to buy the company. JPMorgan later agreed to raise the price to $10 a share under pressure from Bear Stearns shareholders, many of whom were employees.

Bear Stearns stock sold for as much as $173 in January 2007.

Founded in 1923, Bear Stearns survived the Great Depression and first sold shares to the public in 1985 under then-CEO Alan “Ace” Greenberg. Now, the company’s brand name will all but vanish.

The deal is expected to close but will face lawsuits from shareholders who said the purchase price was still too low. JPMorgan held 49.5% of the company as of May 9, and the shareholders say its stake unfairly skewed the approval vote.

Bear Stearns, once the fifth-largest U.S. securities firm, joins a list of vanished Wall Street firms subsumed by merger, including First Boston, Salomon Bros., Dillon Read and Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette. The one Bear Stearns vestige will be its retail brokerage, which will keep the brand and operate as a separate unit in JPMorgan’s asset management division.