Six injured after construction crane catches fire in NYC and hits building
NEW YORK — A tall construction crane caught fire in Manhattan on Wednesday morning, injuring six people — including two firefighters — as it crashed into a neighboring building before falling to the street.
Officials received a report around 7:30 a.m. of a fire in the engine compartment of a crane operating at 550 10th Avenue in Midtown, about 45 stories up and carrying 16 tons of concrete.
Footage posted on social media showed smoke billowing out of the car of the crane, and its arm striking a building across the street as it fell. Pedestrians could also be seen running from the area.
Four civilians and two firefighters suffered non-life-threatening injuries from the incident, officials said. One of the firefighters was experiencing chest pains and was taken to the hospital. The area around 10th and 11th avenues between 41st and 42nd street was closed to traffic, and the NYPD advised New Yorkers to avoid it.
“As you see from the debris on the street, this could have been much worse,” Mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference at the scene. “We are extremely fortunate, number one, that we were not during the busy time of the day.”
The site of the collapse at 10th Avenue and 41st street is close to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and an entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel to New Jersey. Both reported delays on Wednesday morning due to FDNY activity.
“We were also fortunate that the men and women of FDNY and our first responders responded in such a manner and properly made the right evaluation of how to look at the fire that we were presented and the crisis we were presented and coming up with the right, effective solution to minimize any additional injuries,” the mayor added.
The general contractor for the project under construction, intended to be a 54-story, mixed-use building, is Monadnock Construction, said Jimmy Oddo, commissioner of the Department of Buildings. Oddo said Monadnock was responsible for an earlier “unrelated” incident at the site in which they hit a ConEd vault while they were doing excavation.
The crane that collapsed was owned by New York Crane & Equipment Corp., a firm founded by the late James Lomma, whose cranes were involved in other accidents going back more than a decade.
Lomma was the owner of a crane that collapsed on the east side of Manhattan in March 2008, killing seven people. Two months later, another crane owned by his firm collapsed on the Upper East Side, killing the crane operator and a construction worker, and leading Lomma and the company to be hit with manslaughter and other criminal charges.
Lomma was acquitted of the criminal charges but was ordered to pay $96 million in damages in 2015 following a civil trial.
There was no immediate comment from the crane company. In a statement, Monadnock thanked the first responders for their efforts and sought to highlight its precautions at its worksites.
"Safety is a priority for Monadnock Construction Inc. at this and every project," the Brooklyn-based company said. "We are fully cooperating with all regulatory agencies and are available for any assistance that is needed. We are unable to provide any additional details regarding the incident at this time.”
Oddo said: “There are lots of people who are part of the crane operation. There’s an engineer that writes up the plans; there’s essentially a general contractor; there’s the user. We will be looking at all those folks.”
Includes reporting from the Associated Press.
