City Council To Hold Saftey Hearing

While officials look for answers, industry leaders insist New York is not unsafe for building.

By Jack Buehrer 

As investigators continue to try to pinpoint the cause of last weekend’s deadly crane collapse in midtown Manhattan, the City Council has announced plans to hold a hearing on safety at high-rise construction sites next month.

“We don’t yet know all the facts that led to the East Side crane collapse, but we do know that we must take whatever actions in our power to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said in a statement released Tuesday. “Construction is a crucial component of our economy, but we cannot sacrifice safety in the name of development.”

The hearing, set for April 29, was called in response not only to Saturday’s accident, which left 7 dead and destroyed parts of several buildings near the East 51st Street site. Several other recent high-profile accidents, some of them deadly, have led some members of council, as well as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, to call for the resignation of the city’s buildings commissioner, Patricia Lancaster, and have much of the public worried that high-rise construction in New York City is becoming increasingly unsafe.

But construction leaders balk at the idea that a few headline-grabbing accidents – such as the December crane malfunction downtown that critically injured an architect on the new Goldman Sachs headquarters site, or the death of a concrete worker at the Trump SoHo building in January – are signs that the city has become unsafe for building.

“Whenever you have a tragic accident like [Saturday’s crane collapse], in makes sense to take a step back and reassess how things are done,” said Lou Colletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association in New York City. “But what you’re seeing is a few very high-profile accidents, and that’s not necessarily indicative of the overall safety of the industry in this region.”

Colletti added that, in response to the recent crane accidents, his organization is now requiring all of its member firms to re-inspect all of its crane operations. The BTEA is also hiring an “independent safety consultant” to review all safety procedures on high-rise construction sites. He estimated that of the approximately 250 cranes on New York City job sites right now, “about 200” were being operated by BTEA members.

Dick Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, agreed that the high-profile nature of the recent accidents are causing alarm, but said it’s up to industry and city leaders to regain the public’s confidence.

Click here for more Newswatch >>