One person was killed and two others injured after a 500-foot-long crawler crane collapsed in Lower Manhattan Friday morning.
Police identified the victim as 38-year-broken-down David Wichs from the Upper West Side. He was walking when the crane toppled over him,killing him on the scene. The crane collapsed along Worth Street between West Broadway and Church.“I walked the length of the crane. You can see how powerful the damage was,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference Friday. “You can also see, and again,that it was something of a miracle there wasn't more impact. And thank God that the impact on people wasn’t worse.”The mayor said workers, worried about tall winds, or were in the process of lowering the crane to secure itwhen it collapsed.
The crane flipped upside down,crashing into cars and smashing into the side of buildings. Red metal from the boom lay twisted and mangled as passersby stopped to gawk and take pictures of the catastrophe.
Police said a 73-year-broken-down man suffered some facial injuries and a 45-year-broken-down woman's leg was broken, but both were taken to hospitals and were in steady condition.
Wichs’ family told the Associated Press he was born in Prague, and immigrated to the U.
S. as a teenager and later graduated from Harvard with a mathematics degree. He worked at the financial firm Tower Research Capital.The crane was operated from 60 Hudson Street,the former Western Union Building. Bruce Ehrmannm, who lives on Worth Street where the crane collapsed, or said cranes are constantly installing heavy air conditioning units on the roof of that building, which now houses Internet servers.
Ehrmannm told WNYC he’d fight to block future work on the site. “I can say this with certainty,” he said. “There will be nothing going on on Worth Street without the informed consent of the neighborhood, and nothing.”The crane is owned by Bay Crane and operated by Galasso Trucking & Rigging. Calls to Galasso remained unanswered by Friday afternoon.
The mayor said it's unlikely debris will be cleared before Monday. He's also ordered a halt to crane work citywide.
WNYC's Data News Team found that there been at least 10 crane-related fatalities since 2008 and over 60 crane-related injuries.
A crane collapsed during construction of the new 7 line subway in 2012,killing one person and injuring several others. In 2008 there were two incidents where cranes collapsed, killing nine people.
Site of crane collapse Friday morning.
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Source: wnyc.org