The One57 crane.

It’s a time-honored tradition for men doing ballsy, ridiculous and risky things to photograph their exploits.  Thankfully the steel workers over at One57 are no exception. They recently yielded to this impulse, taking a series of shots of their work  securing the now- famous crane destroyed during Hurricane Sandy.  The removal of which is, according to Curbed, slated to begin the week of December 3rd.  It’s a difficult job. A new crane has to be built to lower the old one down to the ground and there are legal actions to be settled, of course. But in the meantime we can all look at these pictures the workers took and feel relief that’s it’s not us out there.

Our palms are sweating.

Of course, if you want a closer glimpse of a collapsed crane, you could always mosey on over to 438 W. 38th St. in Hells Kitchen, where a mobile crane collapsed today while trying to lift industrial air conditioning units onto a buildings roof.  Nothing was hurt excepting, we assume, the crane operator's pride.

A headache and a toothache. (Getty)

As most every New Yorker can now eerily recall, just as Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on the city, the crane atop One57 snapped back, nearly crashing to the street. The boom wound up holding throughout the 100-mile-per-hour winds, the incident resulted in the evacuation of hundreds of residents, businesses and hotels, most of whom could not return for more than a week.

We've already heard from an angry public relations executive who believes Extell should reimburse the city for the cost of monitoring the accident and evacuating the streets. Now comes the first of what may well be many lawsuits over the crane crisis at the billionaire-beloved building.

According to the Daily News, two dentists have sued Pinnacle Industries, the crane's owner, and Lend Lease, the contractor on the project. Barry Musikant and Caroline Stern have a dental practice at 119 West 57th Street, and they charge that they lost a week's worth of business because of the accident, and the News also notes that Mr. Musikant had to evacuate his home.

It would be curious if the pair could file for FEMA funds, since there are questions about whether this was a natural disaster or a man-made one, so to speak. But what seems certain is this will be the first of many such suits.

Their success remains another open question since the crane accident has been seen exactly as that, a freak accident resulting from a freak of nature. Even the commissioner at the Department of Buildings has said there was no way of expecting this would happen and nothing that could have prevented it since every precaution was taken during the storm.

Secured. (Getty)

Before Hurricane Sandy even reached the Five Boroughs, the city was thrown into chaos when its prevailing winds knocked over the boom of the crane hanging off the side of the billionaire-beloved One57 condo tower. In our oral history of Hurricane Sandy, Fire Chief Sal Cassano told The Observer that was the moment the storm got serious. "That was pretty much the start of a very, very active and serious night," Mr. Cassano said. "We had a four-alarm assignment for an incident that wasn’t even a fire."

Yesterday, The Times had a harrowing account of the moments surrounding the crane snapping. It includes the main city engineer on the scene saying he gave the boom a 20 percent chance of breaking off entirely and falling earthward. His boss, Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri, felt more secure, as he told The Observer during our interview for the oral history that, following some initial panic, he felt confident the boom would hold through the storm and the days ahead.

"We had made an estimate that, at the time, we knew the crane was not going to fall," Mr. LiMandri said. "We felt very comfortable that the ties that held the mast up were intact, and that was a very good sign, knowing that the mast had not been compromised. We had some estimates on the iron chords that were holding the mast together to the balloon, so we were fairly comfortable that that part was secure."

Still, the the full force of the storm yet to come, Mr. LiMandri feared his team was not in the clear yet. "We knew we were still headed  for the height of the storm, the wind directions had changed several times within a matter of two hours while we were standing there, so we didn’t know if it would withstand the probably 100-plus mile-per-hour wind. In other words, we weren't sure if it would be intact."

But the early estimates proved true, and the boom survived the night. So did Mr. LiMandri, who camped out across the street before eventually moving into a Holiday Inn on West 39th Street—one of the few available rooms he could find—to be close to the accident site.

"We knew that once we made it through the evening and looked at it again the next day we felt pretty comfortable that it was not going to fall," the commissioner said. "But you can have six engineers tell you the same thing, but when you look at it, you’d go, 'Really?! Are you sure?'"

When it came time to secure the crane, so the street could reopen, Mr. LiMandri said the city took every precaution to ensure a safe and successful operation, quadruple checking every calculation, challenging every assumption.

"The team worked very hard in coming up with a strategy," Mr. LiMandri explained. "We may have inconvenienced New Yorkers for a couple of days, but we wanted to get it right. We flew in the crane manufacturer, we had experts from Europe come, to basically design how we were going to secure it. We had to make sure that we could actually rotate it by hand, we had to latch it, make sure the building stands the extra weight. We wanted to make sure it was done right.

"We had like, probably 10 engineers in the room, to make sure that we were doing the right thing, not all reporting on the same structure on purpose to make those engineers sort of fight with each other to make sure that they all agreed that the plan would work and that the engineering calculations were correct."

The whole ordeal gave the buildings commissioner a newfound respect for the power of nature. "Wind is a very powerful and difficult force to calculate," Mr. LiMandri said. "When other buildings and other obstructions are in the way, it’s not like you are in the middle of an open field, and you’re feeling a gust of around 80 or 100 miles per hour, which would be something anyway. You’re 1,000 feet up, and you’re surrounded by very tall buildings to begin with. It is one of the most challenging things I have ever had to deal with."

As Mr. LiMandri told us, he barely ate throughout the entire ordeal—it made him lose his appetite.

The boom is back, but the street is not. (Getty)

It's true of communities across the city, so why not West 57th Street? From the Rockaways to Staten Island, people have returned to their homes and businesses but found them without power, and the same seems to be going for the one-block stretch of the city that was shut down after the crane boom of One57 snapped back.

Yesterday, the city secured the crane boom to the side of the building, a day ahead of scheduled, and reopened the street. But that does not mean life is yet back to normal. According to a number of people on the street, they remain without electricity or heat—even though Con Ed claims otherwise. "They said we couldn't expect anything before noon," Daniel Van Doren, whose family owns 130 West 57th Street, told The Observer in a phone interview from his MetroNorth train headed to the city.

"Just like the rest of this debacle, Con Ed is not giving much detail," Mr. Van Doren added.

The Observer also spoke with someone at the Salsibury Hotel, the 118-room hotel at 123 West 57th Street that had to be evacuated because of the crane accident. "We're not back up yet," said a woman at the front desk, who asked we not use her name. "We really hope we'll be back this afternoon by three, but that all depends on Con Ed."

This would seem to contradict what a Con Edison spokesman told The Observer this morning. "The power has been turned back on, but there are still some customer who have issues we have to deal with," Alfonso Quiroz said. But Mr. Quiroz also mentioned flooding issues on the street as a problem, which so far no one has reported as a problem, this being some of the highest ground in Manhattan.

The power was shut down following the accident to ensure no further damage should the crane boom fall and puncture a gas main or electrical line, which could have triggered an explosion.

The lack of help from Con Ed extends not only to landlords but tenants, as well. "Do you know when I will be allowed access to my building (north side of 57th, between 6th and 7th)?" Stuart Bernstein wrote The Observer in an email. "My office is there, and I can get no info on when I might gain entrance to my building. Extreme frustration on many people's part as no info is coming out about this block near the crane."

Update:According to Dan Garodnick's office, "it could be a few days" before some people on the street see resumption of heat and steam service.

Boom! (Getty)

Well, the recovery continues faster than expected in New York. We've got subways almost miraculously coming back to life after flooding throughout the system, and now the securing of the crane boom dangling over West 57th Street has been completed a day ahead of schedule, wrapping up tonight rather than Monday night as the mayor had previously predicted.

It will still be weeks before the crane—whose boom was almost torn asunder during last week's hurricane—can be removed and construction can resume on the billionaire-beloved One57 tower. Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri's full statement on the operation is below.

The operation to secure the boom of the tower crane at 157 West 57th Street in Manhattan is complete.

All streets in the immediate area are in the process of being opened, excluding two lanes on the north side of West 57th Street between 6th and 7th avenues.

Evacuated residents can reoccupy buildings in the area, but utilities in some buildings may have to be restored.

I would like to commend our engineers and inspectors who have worked tirelessly with the project's contractors to inspect the tower crane and approve a plan to secure the boom - so New Yorkers can safely return to their homes and offices.

Hang on. (Getty)

The crane that snapped back at One57 is still hanging precariously over Midtown, but the city is preparing a plan to secure the boom on the billionaire-beloved building that will commence tomorrow and should be completed by Monday night, Mayor Bloomberg announced at his press briefing this afternoon.

"Tomorrow, work on securing the crane will begin," he said. "It's approximately a 36 hour operation, and the goal is to remove the vacate order to allow people in the vicinity to return to their homes and offices by Monday night. We've just got to make sure we do this in a way that doesn't cost any lives."

It has taken this long to get to taking down the crane because the city was studying the damage from every angle to ensure no further accidents during the recovery procedure.

"We think we have a plan that's been well studied by everybody," Mayor Bloomberg said. "We've been on the crane with workers, we've photographed everything, we've studied the blueprints, and we think have a plan that will in 36 hours let us secure the boom to the building and then over the next three or four weeks, we'll have to build another crane next to it to take down the pieces that are damaged."

The Journal had some details on just how the crane might be secured this morning, a procedure that can only be described as Rube Goldberg-esque.

The plan calls for a worker to rotate the entire crane using a small hand crank, turning the damaged boom toward the building. Then cables would be used to secure the boom to 10- to 12-foot steel arms installed near the top of the condominium tower on West 57th Street, the people said.

Later, a derrick would be installed near the top of the building, and used to lower the crane boom to the ground. Another boom would be raised so that construction work on the tower could continue, according to a person briefed on the plan.

Ah, the good ol' hand crank. We're living by candle light, back to 18th Century technology.

For some, danger, or at least an inconvenience. (Getty)

PR maven Ronn Torossian, who was evacuated from his offices at 888 Seventh Avenue, has been passing around an op-ed to outlets across the city, Gothamist among them. He blames Extell Development for failing to maintain its now-crushed crane at One57, accuses the firm of negligence and mismanagement and endangering the people and economy of the city. "A thorn and open question remains the 90-story residential tower, One57," Mr. Torossian writes, in his piece titled "Shame on Extell Development and Gary Barnett."

"The city of New York should demand that Extell and Barnett pay back the city, residents and businesses back for the millions it will cost because of their negligence," he concludes.

Extell released the following statement to The Observer taking Mr. Torossian to task for trying to capitalize on this misfortune.

We think is is obvious that Mr. Torossian is trying to take advantage of a natural disaster for own publicity and profit. The crane was inspected in anticipation of the hurricane on Oct. 26 and was positioned as it was supposed to be in preparation for a hurricane. Lend Lease, the construction manager for the site, is working together with the city Fire Department, Office of Emergency Management and Department of Buildings to ensure the safety of the street and to return people to their homes and businesses as quickly as possible.

Hang on. (Getty)

Superstorm Sandy has been full of dramatic events, from the fire in Breezy Point to the flooding of all those tunnels, the explosion of the Con Edison plant, submersion of the Rockaways... it has been a terrifying 24 hours. But perhaps no moment typified the New York-iness of this storm quite like the crane accident at One57. Where but here would you find a death-defying incident 1,000 feet in the air involving a home for the world's billionaires?

With that in mind, many New Yorkers have been wondering just what the fate of the crane boom that has been hanging precariously for more than a day would be. According to the Department of Buildings, inspections reveal that the crane should be safe for now, but given the difficult conditions from the storm, it has been very difficult to inspect the damage directly.

"Our engineers have been on the scene all day now with the crane," Tony Sclafani, the DOB spokesman, said in a phone interview. "Up until this point, they have not been able to access the building due to high winds. But last night, two inspectors made their way up to the 70th floor, floor by floor, step by step, to make sure all the connections to the crane were secure. They were accompanied by firefighters along the way."

The crane currently sits near the 90th floor of the building, which is the penthouse, so it was difficult to inspect everything, but the department remains confident that the boom will not be falling barring some unforeseen disaster. Mr. Sclafani stressed that the inspection was in the early stages and the department was more concerned with securing the crane than determining what caused the accident, though it appeared to be a wind-related issue.

"Right now, the concern is stabilization, and we are working on a plan to fully stabilize the crane," Mr. Sclafani said.

He said that it could take a few days before the crane is secure, but the exact measures required would become more clear "in the next few hours." He said the Department of Buildings, along with the Fire Department, would be working around the clock to secure the crane and one possible solution would be to tether the boom to the building or the body of the crane until a new crane can be erected to disassembled the damaged crane. Such an operation could take days or even weeks according to industry experts.

For the time being, construction will be halted at the site and an evacuation order for the surrounding area remains in effect. Mr. Sclafani said Extell Development, the firm behind the city's tallest apartment building, and its contractors are fully complying with the investigation.

In a brief phone call with The Observer, Mr. Barnett said simply, "It is what is is and everything is being dealt with. It's going to be O.K." He said his p.r. firm, Rubinstein Associates, had prepared a statement, but that was more than an hour ago and none has materialized.

Mayor Bloomberg did not mention the accident in his morning press briefing, but it was mentioned in a statement sent out by his office after the event: "Yesterday a partially damaged at a site on West 57th Street required evacuation of the immediate vicinity. The Department of Buildings has determined that the crane is currently stable, however we can’t fully secure the crane until the wind dies down. The procedure there, when the winds die down, will be to try to get the boom and strap it to the building, and then we could reopen the streets, and then over a period of time the contracting company will have to figure out a way to build a new crane on top and take that one down."

We may be in the clear, but the wait continues.

Update 6:20: Extell just released the following statement:

Responding to press questions, we can confirm that LendLease took all recommended measures to position the crane in anticipation of a hurricane. This was inspected and approved by the Department of Buildings and is the standard for hurricanes.

LendLease together with members of the Extell construction team and with supervision and direction of the Fire Department, OEM, DOB, along with other city agencies, are planning a recovery procedure to secure the crane. As soon as the Fire Department deems it safe, that procedure will begin.

We apologize for the considerable inconvenience experienced by our neighbors, but safety is paramount. We are thankful that no one has been hurt.

This is one of the sad truths of the construction industry, that at any moment, because of human error, mechanical failure or just bad luck, someone could be killed. In the case of the Queens construction site, bad concrete, and perhaps a made masonry job, are to blame for the accident. And yet the fact remains, construction is a dangerous business.

Fortunately for hardhats across the Five Boroughs, that is less so the case with each passing year. After a devastating 2008 that saw the highest accident rate in decades--including 19 fatalities, more than half of which resulted from two streetshaking crane accidents and the fire at the Deutsche Bank Building--construction accidents have been steadily falling. This is due in large part to new safety regimes put in place by Department of Building's Commissioner Robert LiMandri, who was appointed in 2008 following then-commissioner Patricia Lancaster's resignation.

Yesterday, LiMandri announced that the number of construction-related accidents in the city fell 28 percent from last year, with 157 reported accidents compared with 218 accidents the year before. Fatalities were up slightly, with four fatalities at construction sites in 2010, compared to three in 2009.

In making his announcement, LiMandri reminded the industry that while progress has been made, more can always be done:

The decrease in accidents in 2010 shows that construction can be done safer, but yesterday's tragic incident is a reminder of how dangerous this work can be. Our inspectors, engineers and architects are working harder than ever to protect New Yorkers, and as a result, there is a heightened awareness of safety throughout the construction industry. 

Many contractors and developers have added new safety measures to better safeguard their sites, such as cocoon systems to prevent falling debris, but there are some who continue to take shortcuts. Taking proper safety precautions can mean the difference between life and death.

Still, the question remains, is the central reason for this decline a matter safety precautions or stalled construction? Like accidents, building permits continued to decline last year, as they did the year before--and the three years before that, even. Part of the reason there were so many accidents in 2008 is the fervid pace of construction as a real estate bubble popped. Once the industry bounces back, can the safety persist? There is no reason it can't, but that is up to the Department of Buildings, the developers and the hardhats to decide.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

There are the typical problems, namely units that came on the market mere days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and have sat there unsold ever since. But there is also the shadow of another collapse looming over the Azure, that of the crane that fell in May 2008, killing two operators inside.

Nearly two years after the accident, the building had its grand opening in April, but there was little movement in the apartments -- until now, a sign that the building may have finally rebounded from its bad luck.

Over the past three months, a dozen units have closed in the building, with 12 more now in contract, the developer told The Observer. That would nudge the 128-unit building over the 15 percent mark, allowing for units in the building to start closing. In deed! The Observer has reported at least three of these sales.

"Azure offers quality construction, superior amenities, spectacular prices and competitive pricing," Douglas MacLaury, senior vice president of the Mattone Group, which is co-developing the project, said in an email. "Comparable inventory on the Upper East Side has been dramatically reduced over the last three quarters, so from a supply and demand perspective Azure is well positioned to move to over 50 percent sold in early 2011."

Whether or not this bold proclamation comes true -- it's still dicey out there! -- one thing is certain: The Azure has faired considerably better than 303 East 51st Street. That is the project that suffered the first crane collapse of 2008, in March of that year, which crushed a townhouse and killed seven people. That project was sold amidst its foreclosure last year and remains incomplete.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo