The NYC 57th street street crane collapse at One57 could have become quite a danger if a tornado or high winds played havoc with the load.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr , the last major NYC street crane collapse occurred during Hurricane Sandy .
Unfortunately, history is repeating itself. The affected tower is set to be New York City’s largest residential building. This new 57th street crane collapse happens to be at One57, the exact same location where the crane boom collapsed during Sandy, when winds were gusting up to 40 MPH.
Worse, the 57th street crane collapse happened to be carrying a 13,000 pound load while NYC was on tornado watch. Wind gusts provided similar conditions to Sandy.
This morning, the crane boom was pointing downward and the load was stuck about 40 stories up, dangling near Carnegie Hall. The streets below the 57th street crane were evacuated and gas lines and steam pipes were shut down as a precaution.
Construction crews estimated that manually lowering the load would take hours, and it did. The large, yellow box eventually reached the ground around 3:30 PM EST, taking around six hours.
The last time the 57th street crane collapsed the block was shut down for a week. The street has now reopened for pedestrian traffic but vehicles aren’t allowed to enter.
