May 30, 2008 11:51 pm US/Eastern
Not Again: NYC Crane Collapse Leaves 2 Dead
Another Construction Worker Critically Injured In Second Collapse In Nearly 3 Months
Bloomberg: 'This Is Unacceptable, Intolerable'
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
At least two construction workers died in a crane collapse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan Friday morning, the second deadly incident of its kind in nearly three months.
The accident killed the crane's operator, identified as 30-year-old Donald Leo of Staten Island. Leo was pronounced dead on the scene, while the second victim, identified as 27-year-old Ramadan Kurtiz of the Bronx, was confirmed dead shortly before 3 p.m.
At least one other male worker was critically injured at the site, located at 91st Street and First Avenue. There is no word on that worker's condition.
The crane came tumbling down during the morning rush, sometime around 8 a.m., from the top of the Azure New York, a 34-story cooperative under construction. As the crane snapped, it struck the top of the 23-story building on the southwest corner of the intersection and then slid down its facade, ripping apart balconies and tearing through the walls of apartments.
Seven buildings were evacuated -- 160 apartments in total -- as a precautionary measure.
Hundreds of firefighters and officials from the Office of Emergency Management immediately responded to the scene and worked frantically to search for other victims.
During a news conference at the site, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said an investigation into the incident was underway.
"What has happened is unacceptable and intolerable. Having said that, we do not know why this happened. Whether or not we could have prevented this, we do not know," he said.
Officials admitted that a stop-work order had been placed on the construction site on May 7 due to hazardous conditions observed at the work site, but it was partially rescinded a day later.
Just days before the tragic collapse, the rest of the order was lifted.
At least 25 complaints about the building's construction had been filed in the past. You can view the list of complaints
by clicking here.Manhattan borough President Scott Stringer was stunned that another collapse could happen again, and so soon. "This is totally mind blowing," he said. "It looks like a bomb exploded in Manhattan. It's just a total tragedy.
"This is such a travesty of epic proportion, this is now creating a sense of urgency that perhaps we have never seen before," he added. "Let's admit that we have a crisis and we're not doing well managing the crisis."
A construction worker, Simeon Alexis, was taken to a hospital with his "chest slashed open," his foreman, Scott Bair, told the Associated Press.
An emotional Bair told the AP his own life was saved because he left to get an egg sandwich 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.
Construction worker Andy Alvarez, who assisted in trying to save Leo, told CBS 2 that his co-worker was trapped underneath debris from one of the towers.
"We tried to get him out but he was just pinned. We Gave him water, told him to stay awake," he said.
Alvarez said about seven minutes later, rescue workers showed up.
"They were able to get him out by using hydrolics, but he was in pretty bad shape," he said. "[He made] a lot of eye contact. He was saying, 'I don't want to die.'"
Phillip Schiffman, an airline pilot who lives on the eighth floor of the building that was struck, told CBS 2 he heard a loud noise followed by silence.
"Right away I knew," he said. "I heard this noise and I just said to myself, 'Oh my God,' I thought I was going to die.
"I went out onto my balcony and just saw a horrific sight. Like out of a movie. It's like nothing I have ever seen before."
Schiffman said he called the city's buildings department multiple times recently to check on the the crane's safety and stability because he thought it looked "precarious."
CBS 2's Sean Hennessey was at the scene of the collapse and described the feeling among onlookers.
"We're in the midst of a crowd of people, people wondering how this happened again, and it has happened again with horrible consequences," he said.
Hennessey said a construction worker described hearing "four pops" and seeing bolts snap on the crane after hearing the sound.
Another woman told Hennessey that she said she'd noticed the crane had been shaking in recent days.
City Councilman Tony Avella, who works on the city's Buildings Committee, had harsh words for Bloomberg, telling CBS 2, "The mayor has to share a lot of the blame.
"Construction of buildings is out of control in this city," he said. "How many people have to die before the mayor decides enough is enough? ... Every crane operation in the city needs to be shut down in the city at this point until it's fully inspected."
The collapse is the second in nearly three months, the first occurring on March 15 on Manhattan's east side, killing seven people. Since then, the city's Buildings Department faced scrutiny for its inspections of construction sites.
A city inspector was arrested for falsifying records prior to the March collapse, and the buildings commissioner resigned a short time after.
The building under construction in Friday's collapse was a residential high-rise with several commercial units and a middle school attached.
Area residents say they weren't surprised by the collapse, fearing the crane was not well-supported on the building.
"It wasn't a matter of 'if', it was a matter of 'when,'" said one male witness. "That was the sense that you got. People would just stare up at the crane like 'that doesn't look right'. I'm not an engineer, but it just looked rickety."
Crystal Brisbano, a resident of the building that was struck, told CBS 2 her apartment was destroyed, with one of the walls in her unit completely slashed and brought down. She said the screams of the construction workers will ring through her mind forever.
"There is glass everywhere. There are no walls. It looks like an earthquake hit," she said. "I'm thinking I'm going to die. I'm thinking it's a bomb, it's a crane. I've been waiting for this day and it actually happened."
Officials have shut down First Avenue from 79th Street to 94th Street, and 91st Street from Second Avenue To York. Several bus lines were also detoured because of the incident: M15, M31, M86, and the X90.
Stay with wcbstv.com and CBS 2 for the latest in this developing story.
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