In the News: Crane Operator Credited With Minimizing Damage

••• “In a news conference at the scene on Saturday, city officials said investigators were still working to determine the cause of the collapse. They were reviewing data from a computer aboard the crane, which had been inspected by the city as recently as Thursday, and were seeking to pinpoint the wind speed at the time of the accident. Officials also said tests conducted on the crane’s operator for drugs or alcohol were negative.” —New York Times

••• “High winds played a pivotal role in the collapse of a massive construction crane in Lower Manhattan Friday morning—but the quick thinking of the crane operator kept the fatal accident from being far worse, sources told The Post. The collapse happened as the operator of the 600-foot high crane was beginning to lower it to the ground to keep it from being buffeted by a morning snow squall, and when a strong gust helped knock it off balance, he was able to steer the rig so that it fell along Worth Street, which had already been mostly cleared of pedestrians.”

••• “Bay Crane, the company whose massive rig fatally collapsed in Tribeca Friday, had at least two serious accidents last year.” —New York Post

crane headache ball via NYP and Twitter••• More on the crane: “Its huge lifting hook was sent swinging through the air—and into a New York Law School office—as if it were a wrecking ball. The 4,600-pound apparatus—a huge, red steel orb with a hook at its end that is also known as a ‘headache ball’—could have caused all manner of destruction, but by luck no one was inside the part-time administrative room on the fifth floor.” —New York Post (which credited this photo as from Twitter, but nothing else)

••• “A quarreling couple who sell tickets for competing tourist boat tours got into a nasty dispute in Battery Park Saturday that ended with the angry woman chasing and zapping her beau with a stun gun.” —New York Post

••• Online men’s shoe brand Paul Evans is planing to open a ‘guideshop’ in the Financial District. —New York Post

 

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