Hi, my name is Michelle, and a giant white crane crashed into my apartment building this afternoon. How was your day?
As you may have heard, a crane from a midtown Manhattan construction site smashed into two neighboring apartment buildings this afternoon, killing at least four workers and stranding several others. The accident was described by Mayor Bloomberg as "one of the worst the city has had" -- an observation with which I'm prejudicially inclined to agree. Basically, at around 2:20 p.m., I was in my bedroom checking email when I heard a big CRACK outside my window, which directly faces the condominium being built on the north side of East 51st Street. To be honest, I ignored the clamor at first, because construction on the building has been, shall we say, a bit noisy to date. As in, multiple bulldozers at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning noisy. (Previous complaints by myself and my roommates seem to have fallen on deaf ears). But then I heard another loud crack. And another. Now just ticked off, I walked over to my window and looked outside, having no idea I was about to witness an accident of such magnitude.
At first, I just saw random debris -- dust, pieces of brick -- falling. Then I watched the crane that has greeted me every morning for the past couple months separate from the condo building and slowly tumble into the wall to the right of me. I was too stunned to be scared. The crane didn't exactly fall like it does in the movies. Its descent was rather slow and leisurely before its crash into our building.
The entire building shook. My roommate Emily burst into my bedroom and insisted that we leave. She tore out the front door, thinking I was right behind her. Not quite grasping what was happening, I numbly started walking over the bathroom before Em returned, asked if I was crazy, and then we bolted. Luckily, I remembered to grab my purse. Unluckily, I didn't think to grab a sweatshirt, and found myself standing on the street in a t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops. Em was wearing a sweatshirt over shorts -- so basically, there was only one complete outfit between the two of us.
Once outside, the police -- we live a block away from both a fire station and a police station -- had already shown up and were starting to put up barricades and were forcing us down the street. Families were huddled together, and a couple girls were crying. Formerly merry St. Patrick's revelers patronizing the area's bars were shocked silent. Our doormen frantically ran around trying to evacuate everyone from the building, and it wasn't until we were several feet away from our home that we could see the white base of the crane leaning into the top of our building.
At this point, we weren't even aware that the top of the crane had crushed the townhouse behind us on 50th Street. The extent of the damage became apparent, however, as we watched the ambulances and TV crews arrive. We also caught the beginning of the stretcher parade before ducking into a restaurant so we could watch the news reports on us and get a handle on what was happening. The TV told us that the accident had been fatal. Even more concerned, we rushed back to the site, where a helpful police officer let us slip under the yellow tape back towards our building, where we learned...nothing, outside of the fact that gas fumes had now been added to the equation. Afterwards, my roommate made the error of talking to a reporter, because soon a swarm of journos and cameras began to surround her and pepper her with questions. (Message to anyone who may have seen a particularly disheveled-looking young blonde on TV: Em is normally gorgeous, but she was out until 4 a.m. this morning. End of message.) Stuck with no place to go, we eventually waded our way out of the mass of rescue workers, media, and camera phone-wielding onlookers.
Interestingly, and rather, I suppose, unsurprisingly, I ended up learning more about the accident from user-generated and submitted content than from actual human beings. Nice as they were, none of the police officers or rescue crew we spoke to could give us any answers to our questions. Nor could the staffers at the makeshift shelter set up at the School of Art and Design on East 57th Street. Yet now that I've finally found refuge at a friend's apartment, I'm catching up on the news online and noticing that much of the reporting and video-coverage is all supplied by home-made video and camera-phones, as well as streaming eye-witness accounts. Furthermore, to quickly reassure inquiring friends and family that I wasn't hurt, I updated my status on both my Facebook profile and Gchat account once things had settled down to reach more people in a shorter span of time. Technology. Ain't it grand?
At this point, I'm still waiting to hear exactly what's going on, although I'm not even sure how I'm supposed to find that information out (calls to Kibel, the company that owns our building, aren't being picked up.)The crane is also still embedded in our building, and we've been (rightly so) told that we won't be allowed back in the neighborhood until the structural soundness of our building can be verified, which may take several days. Most tragically, they haven't even reached the "recovery" stage of the operation. According to numerous news sources, people are still trapped in the rubble of the crushed building and my prayers are with them and their families.
I also urge the construction crews and companies of the city to just slow the frak down. Profits can't come at the cost of people's lives. The condo being erected across the street from my apartment is supposed to be 44-stories high, and has been going up at a frighteningly breakneck pace. In fact, the quick construction -- and its accompanying noise pollution -- have been a frequent subject of conversation between the tenants in my building for quite some time. It seems like just yesterday there was nothing in the condo's space, and now it's already half-"done". As a daily witness to the condo's growth, I can honestly say that I'd be afraid to live in a building put up so quickly -- and can only hope that the RCG Construction Group, the construction company behind the up-going condo, will take a long, hard look at its practices. According to the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg said that "13 violations had been assessed against the construction since work began in January 2006, and he called that relatively normal for a 27-month period."
It may be "normal," but that doesn't make it acceptable.