Seen & Heard: New Downtown Connection Stop

••• The Downtown Alliance added a stop to its free Downtown Connection bus: You can get off at South Street and Peck Slip (in front of the Paris Café), but you can’t board the bus there. You have to walk over to Water and Fulton.

••• “A lot of activity the last couple of days in the Staple Street,” reports A. “Inspectors seem very interested in the bridge.” I replied that maybe someone was interested in buying the skybridge, but A. thinks the workers were with the city. (By the way, that’s a very lively camera angle, A.!)

••• Torly Kid has organized caroling for this Sunday. Free but you have to RSVP. Full info here.

••• I came across Crane Tech Solutions‘s report on the Worth Street crane accident on Twitter. I can email you the PDF, if you like. From the summary:

To calculate the boom and luffing jib angles at the time of the collapse, CTS used the length of the unspooled rope, the component weights and CGs from MRA’s ground bearing pressure calculation, and wind areas from Liebherr’s stability calculation. The results were that the boom was at 73° and the jib at 51°, and the crane would likely overturn in a 26 mph wind blowing from behind the crane, taking wind speed as uniform over the height of the crane. The boom and luffing jib angles change to 72° and 49°, respectively, when calculating the effects of elongation of suspension pendant bars and the boom and luffing jib ropes. In this position, the crane would likely overturn in a 4 mph wind blowing from behind the crane, taking wind speed as uniform over the height of the crane at these angles.

The evidence proves that the operator caused the collapse by not following the manufacturer’s recommendation that the boom be lowered to the ground prior to the wind exceeding 15.66 mph, not responding appropriately to a wind event, and lowering the main boom to our calculated 72° and the luffing jib to our calculated 49° angle prior to the collapse.

Further, CTS reviewed the reports and documents mentioned above and concludes that the operator’s failure to lower the boom and luffing jib to the ground the night before the collapse (February 4) is the primary cause of the collapse. This error was compounded by the operator lowering the boom to 72° and the luffing jib to 49° angle placed the crane at its stability limit. These compounded errors ultimately led the crane to collapse.

••• A sign in the window of 322 Spring (at Greenwich, where Sacco & Vanzetti Bistro was), says the new business there is called Spring Street’s Finest. The rumor had been that it’s a deli, and that name sounds deliesque.

 

4 Comments

  1. FWIW, the apartments that include the Skybridge are listed as “no longer available” on Streeteasy. So maybe another realtor is taking over the sale? That’s got to be one of the worst staging jobs I’ve seen lately for ridiculously [over]priced real estate: streeteasy.com/sale/1223882

    Speaking of overprice real estate, have you seen the listing for 2 North Moore Street? They are asking for $97,500 PER MONTH!!!
    http://streeteasy.com/building/2-north-moore-street-new_york/townhouse

  2. Note there appears to be a hole exposed where the rightmost panel under a window used to be on the bridge. Perhaps it was opened to inspect the connection of the bridge back to the building.

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