New York: A heating and air conditioning unit weighing several tons came untethered from a crane and fell 30 storeys to the ground in midtown Manhattan on Sunday, leaving seven people scraped, bruised and shaken up, officials said.
The equipment came tumbling down at 10.43am on a stretch of Madison Avenue, officials said. Had it happened on a weekday, when the area is typically bustling with pedestrians and motorists, the consequences might have been worse.
“We lucked out on this,” Ronald Spadafora, an assistant fire chief, said at a news conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials.
Even for a Sunday, the area was quite active. Nearby, a parade was marching along Fifth Avenue. De Blasio took part in the festivities.
The crane was lifting the equipment to a mechanical room on the roof of an office tower at 261 Madison Avenue, Spadafora said. The crane dropped the load, which scraped the building on its way down, sending glass, metal and concrete raining onto the ground. After the fall, a cloud of smoke rose above the block, between East 38th and East 39th streets.
The Fire Department said two construction workers and five passers-by sustained minor injuries, described as lacerations, from the falling debris. The construction workers were taken to Bellevue Hospital Centre, and two people were taken to NYU Langone Medical Centre. The others refused medical attention.
None of the debris fell in buffer zones between the building and the street, known as setbacks, Spadafora said. Zuma, a popular Japanese restaurant on the first floor, was also closed.
On Sunday, officials were still trying to figure out what caused the load to drop. The New York City Department of Buildings, which oversees construction, is conducting an investigation.
“We, as I said, will do a full investigation to understand what happened here,” de Blasio said, “and to guard against anything like this in the future.”
Rick D. Chandler, the buildings commissioner, said the crane was in good shape. The site has had active construction permits since February, and there were no open complaints or violations for the site, he added.
Officials said the type of work the crane was doing was usually reserved for the weekend, so that workers could block traffic and create buffer zones.
The building was not occupied because construction codes required it to be empty for the rooftop work, according to the Buildings Department.
One lane of Madison Avenue was open at the time of the incident, and officials said debris fell onto passing vehicles.
The episode set off a large response from city agencies. The Fire Department sent out more than 150 firefighters and Emergency Medical Service providers.
Officials closed nearby streets to cars and pedestrians. Traffic was closed between Fifth and Park Avenues from 34th to 42nd Street, and pedestrians were not allowed to pass between the two avenues from 37th and 40th Street.
Officials said they hoped to reopen streets before the Monday morning rush.
The 28-storey building is just a few blocks from Grand Central Terminal. It is owned by the Sapir Organisation, a family-owned group of companies that owns and manages several landmark properties in Manhattan.
In a statement on Sunday, the Sapir Organisation said that it was cooperating with the authorities in their investigation.
“Our first priority remains people’s safety, ensuring no more injuries occur and that the building will be safe and operational,” the company said in the statement.
