NEW YORK - Emergency crews worked Sunday to stabilize an Upper East Side building damaged in the latest deadly crane collapse, as residents displaced by the incident waited to see when they could get inside.
Gina and Larry Bliss and their daughters Lainie, 22 months, and Sadie, 5 months, who live in the damaged building, had been told they could go in Sunday morning to check on their belongings.
But when they got to the police barricade surrounding the accident scene, where two men were killed and another injured on Friday, they were told to come back later.
The family moved in a week before the crane hit the building and has no plans to leave. “As long as the building's safe, we're going back,” Gina Bliss said. “We love the area.”
The Blisses said their 13th-floor apartment was not damaged by the crane, which crushed a penthouse and clawed through the balconies below it.
The collapse happened when the cab of a 200-foot crane popped off its mast and scraped the balconies off the northeast corner of an apartment building across the street.
The crane operators were building a new condo tower on East 91st Street, forty blocks north of where a crane collapse killed seven on March 15.
On Sunday, a cherry picker hoisted workers onto the damaged top floor to survey the wreckage as tourists and neighborhood residents watched. The Department of Buildings said a forensic investigation into what went wrong has started, which includes examining the crane parts.
Emily Schottland, who said she can see the building the crane was working on from her kitchen, said the accident did not surprise her, given the hectic pace of construction.
“Within one day they had put up two floors,” she said.
Friday's crane 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.
Developers, labor representatives, crane owners and others attended a closed-door meeting Saturday to discuss construction safety issues.
But when they got to the police barricade surrounding the accident scene, where two men were killed and another injured on Friday, they were told to come back later.
The family moved in a week before the crane hit the building and has no plans to leave. “As long as the building's safe, we're going back,” Gina Bliss said. “We love the area.”
The Blisses said their 13th-floor apartment was not damaged by the crane, which crushed a penthouse and clawed through the balconies below it.
The collapse happened when the cab of a 200-foot crane popped off its mast and scraped the balconies off the northeast corner of an apartment building across the street.
The crane operators were building a new condo tower on East 91st Street, forty blocks north of where a crane collapse killed seven on March 15.
On Sunday, a cherry picker hoisted workers onto the damaged top floor to survey the wreckage as tourists and neighborhood residents watched. The Department of Buildings said a forensic investigation into what went wrong has started, which includes examining the crane parts.
Emily Schottland, who said she can see the building the crane was working on from her kitchen, said the accident did not surprise her, given the hectic pace of construction.
“Within one day they had put up two floors,” she said.
Friday's crane 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.
Developers, labor representatives, crane owners and others attended a closed-door meeting Saturday to discuss construction safety issues.
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