Bloomberg and the Crane
June 2nd, 2008
The deadly crane accident on Friday sparked the by now familiar drill of construction accidents: comments by residents they knew something was amiss, pledges by city government to do more, grieving relatives and the sagas of those who survived. But this accident also has produced a flurry of coverage wondering whether the mayor deserves some blame for the at least15 construction deaths so far this year.
“What seems plain to some of us is that Mr. Bloomberg and his falling-down Building Department are common threads here,” writes Daniel Millstone on the Daily Gotham. “It is Mr. Bloomberg who has to revise the do-what-you want policies in which builders self-certify compliance based on self-inspections.” And he continued, “It is Mr. Bloomberg who has to create an energized corps of building inspectors out of a group he has systematically dissed and underfunded over years. It is Mr. Bloomberg who should stop making excuses.”
In the Times, Diane Cardwell sees the accident as a clear problem for Bloomberg. “There are signs that residents — even those who have generally viewed him favorably in the past — are running out of patience with Mr. Bloomberg,” she wrote. “The deaths threaten the long-held view of Mr. Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire, as a talented manager, political observers said.”
“How much more evidence do we need, and how many more lives need to be lost, before we call the entire system broken?” wondered Brownstoner. And bloggers as far away as California expressed concern. “How can the safety of residents and office-goers in the neighborhood be compromised in this manner? Mayor Bloomberg… has said his administration won’t tolerate a rate of crane accidents higher than it should be. We’re not sure what the acceptable rate for cranes falling from above is, but presumably the limit has been reached a while ago,” wrote Reeves Law Blog, a California personal injury site.
As an indication of a growing pique with the mayor, the Daily News chided him for not leaing his weekly radio show in mid-broadcast when the accident occurred Friday and rushing to the site.
To make the situation sticker for the administration, it turns out the city owns the 91st Street lot where the crane was, according to the Post. The city arranged the project– in return the developer had to provide a new middle school –and, the Post said, approved every aspect of it.
By Gail Robinson on June 2, 2008, 2:25 pmIn category: Gotham City, Land Use
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July 17th, 2008 at 8:23 am
All cranes that are 3 ton and up need to have a 3rd party inspection done on all annual inspections.