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NEW YORK (CBS) ― The clean up continues to send dust and debris flying on E. 91st St. but the toppled crane is gone. It was carted away to an undisclosed location for expert examination.

"Too many New Yorkers find themselves worried that the construction boom in New York is endangering their safety," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said.

New York's latest doomed crane was inspected multiple times and shut down twice. Now, the focus is on a crack in the crane's turntable base. Sources tell CBS 2 News the crack was identified earlier this year at another site was welded together then put back in to service on E. 91st St. on April 20.

After a late afternoon emergency meeting at City Hall, acting buildings commissioner Robert LiMandri promised all New Yorkers he will get results. "It came apart from the mast and that allows us to focus on the actual turntable," said LiMandri, confirming that a possible bad weld could be at fault. "As we look at the way the mast separated, this is the area we want to look at. We have looked at a plate, a weld may have had fatigue."

"What we need to determine was this the model and did it have a problem and what was the fix that was done,' LiMandri said.

For now, all tower cranes in the city are at stand-still. The one that toppled was 24-years-old, and manufactured by Kodiak. Four others just like it are currently being re-inspected, but that's only a first step. Worried residents and city leaders demand much more.

"I don't want to hear from more constituents that they're afraid to sit on their couches," New York City Council member Jessica Lappin told a news conference near the site of the accident on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

She joined Stringer, who called on the city to treat rising buildings as "a public safety crisis," with the police and fire departments forming a task force with investigators and other experts to keep close watch on all construction.

"We all have a sense of urgency, because this problem is not going away," the Manhattan borough president said.

The giant crane collapsed Friday while helping to build a 32-story condominium, killing two construction workers and injuring a third.

Crews worked through the night, and the sound of sawing rumbled Saturday through the closed-off blocks around the site. Three emergency cranes lifted debris and took apart pieces of the shattered 200-foot crane, which broke apart and plummeted to the ground, pulverizing a penthouse and shearing balconies off an apartment building across East 91st Street from the building under construction. A mammoth flatbed truck was loaded with a large piece of the fallen rig.

Passers-by lined police barricades on First Avenue to observe and snap photos of the wrecked crane. Among the onlookers were 4-year-old Spencer Kufeld and his mother, Beth.

Asked what he was looking at, Spencer replied, "A problem."

Residents had been allowed to return to many of the 160 apartments in various buildings evacuated after the collapse, but those living in the damaged building waited for word on when they could go home. The building's water and gas service had been shut off.

The crane toppled after depositing a load on top of the new structure and turning to pick up more materials from the street, construction worker Scott Bair said Friday. LiMandri said investigators would focus on a weld that failed on the 24-year-old Kodiak crane, a model he said was out of production.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has called the accident "unacceptable and intolerable" but said the city appeared to have followed regulations.

The project's general contractor, Leon D. DeMatteis Construction Corp., said subcontractor Sorbara Construction was in charge of operating the crane. A woman who answered the telephone at Sorbara Friday said no one was available to comment; the telephone system's general mailbox did not accept a message Saturday.

The collapse extended a spike in deadly construction accidents around the city, including the March 15 crane collapse in midtown. More than two dozen construction workers have been killed in the past year.

Friday's accident killed the crane operator, Donald Leo, 30, and another worker, Ramadan Kurtaj, a 27-year-old immigrant from Kosovo who reportedly had fought in the civil war there and came to New York two years ago. He earned a living laying down water and sewer lines, sending his savings home to his parents.

A third construction worker, Simeon Alexis, 32, was seriously injured; Bair said his chest was "slashed open" and later stitched at a Manhattan hospital. No update on his condition was immediately available Saturday. One pedestrian was treated for minor injuries.

CBS 2's John Slattery contributed to this report.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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