Nothing has quite been the same since the horrific crane collapse last weekend that killed seven people. Ever since, people have been noticing just how many cranes and construction sites there are around the city:
1) The number of reported crane incidents climbed from 19 in 2006 to 29 in 2007, with accidents involving injuries rising from three to nine. Even before the March 15 disaster that flattened a brownstone and required 18 buildings to be evacuated, there had been three "serious crane accidents." Applications to set up cranes went from 707 in 2003 to 931 in 2006. [NYDN]
2) Last week's "safety sweep" of the city's 250 or so cranes found a pin missing from one at the site of a 57-story W Hotel at 123 Washington Street. There's now a Stop Work Order. Since September 2007, the Department of Buildings’ new Special Enforcement Teams have issued 773 Stop Work Orders and 1,617 violations. [Metro]
3) The Port Authority is setting up a crane-inspection process at the World Trade Center "that far exceeds city standards." By next year, the WTC site will have the country's biggest concentration of tower cranes in the country, with "17 enormous hoists." [NYP]
4) In case anyone wondered, a lot of cranes live and sleep in Queens in a storage yard in Maspeth that a lot of people drive past on the BQE and/or LIE. [NYT]
5) The biggest concentration of cranes is (surprise) in Manhattan, with the biggest number along with West Side, particularly in Hell's Kitchen and Tribeca. [NYDN]
[Photo by mrgenko/Curbed Photo Pool]