Crane Collapse Prompts Safety Conference

Building department officials gathered for an emergency safety summit Saturday after the city's second deadly crane collapse in recent weeks, while lawmakers warned of dangers in New York's building boom - especially the 250 cranes still up in the sky.

On his way into the meeting, acting Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said he was "deeply disturbed" by Friday's collapse and was committed to implementing any reforms needed to avoid a repeat.

Investigators have not determined what caused the collapse of the 200-foot-tall crane, which pulverized an Upper East Side penthouse and sheared off balconies on an apartment building across the street. It came 2½ months after another crane toppled into a town house and killed seven people in midtown.

Forensic engineers will examine the crane to determine what went wrong, and the city Department of Buildings is researching its history and reviewing its maintenance records, spokeswoman Kate Lindquist said.

Residents were allowed to return to many of the 160 apartments in 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.

LiMandri suspended several crane operations in the city for the weekend and said his agency would inspect the four other Kodiak cranes operating in the city.

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

She joined Manhattan Borough President Scott 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," Stringer said.

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 the street from the building under construction. A mammoth flatbed truck was loaded with a large piece of the fallen rig.

Citywide, the Buildings Department halted the erection of new cranes, dismantling of cranes in use or extending the height of any cranes, a process known as "jumping."

Passers-by lined police barricades 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."

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.

Building department officials had looked at the crane three times this month, most recently Thursday. No violations had been issued.

CBS Station WCBS correspondent Deborah Garcia reports that Donald Leo, the 30-year-old crane operator from Staten Island who was in the machine's cab and fell to his death, was just a few weeks away from marrying the love of his life. His fiancee, Janine Belcastro, said her "heart is broken."

His family and friends asked for privacy as they grieved at Leo's parents' Staten Island home.

Labor priest Father Brian Jordan knew him well.

"This young man was full of promise and full of talent. May God's blessing be upon his family and his local union," Jordan said.

On the street below the crane was 28-year-old Ramadan Kurtaj from the Bronx, the second victim of the accident. He was an employee of Metropolitan Water and Sewer. Falling debris from the collapse struck and trapped him. He was confirmed dead shortly before 3 p.m. Friday.

"We tried getting him out but he was pinned so we just tried to comfort him the best we could. 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 hydraulics, 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.'"

Kurtaj, a native of Kosovo, was living with his uncle and cousins in the Bronx - all construction trade workers.

"Just horrible, I feel so sick, I feel so bad," said his uncle, Beke Nikqi.

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."

During a news conference at the site, Mayor 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.

City Councilman Tony Avella, who works on the city's Buildings Committee, had harsh words for Bloomberg, telling WCBS, "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."