Crane Crashes Through Scaffolding One Day After DOB Lifts Stop Work Order

An unmanned crane tumbled off a rooftop and crashed through scaffolding in Hell’s Kitchen on Friday, April 4, shattering it into a tangle of wood and steel. Miraculously, nobody was injured, the FDNY confirmed.

The close-call event occurred after the Department of Buildings issued a partial stop-work order for the same construction site on March 25, which it had lifted only a day before the crash, as first reported by the local blog W42ndSt. and confirmed by Chelsea News. The order was served initially for the operation of a crane without a proper permit.

The trouble reportedly began when one crane, which was stationed on the roof, began lifting up the other one; the latter was evidently too heavy.

Now, as of the day of the accident, a stop-work order has been reapplied. “HOISTING OPERATION APPEAR TO BE UNSAFE AT THIS CONSTRUCTION SITE,” the DOB notes.

Chelsea News visited the scene shortly after the incident occurred at around 3 p.m. on April 4. A gaggle of mostly shocked bystanders and passerby had lined up across from the 12-story building at 501 Ninth Avenue, which sits on the corner of W. 38th St.

Multiple fire trucks responded to the scene after receiving a call at 3:07 p.m., the FDNY said, diverting traffic and appearing to remain on standby until the situation was under control one hour later.

According to a statement issued by the FDNY on social media, the damage was caused by a “spider” crane.

“We arrived on scene and we immediately began to do a search under the debris pile to see if there was anybody located underneath,” Assistant Chief Michael Meyers said. “At the same time, Engine 34, Ladder 4 and Rescue 1 began to do a structural assessment inside the building and on the roof of the building to make sure that there would be no further collapses of the scaffolding or any other parts of the building would come down, and also that the structural integrity of the roof was in check.”

Karen DeToro, who was walking in the vicinity, said she witnessed the tail end of the event. She told Chelsea News that there was a sound like “somebody moving a dumpster and metal rattling, but it just went on for so long and it was so loud.”

Then, DeToro said, she had turned to witness the scaffolding caving in on itself. It wasn’t yet clear whether anybody had been injured at that point, but she had noticed that construction workers gathered at the site “seemed pretty calm,” which provided her with a measure of hope that there were no serious injuries. As everybody found out later, this fortunately ended up being the case.

A man who gave his first name only as Michael chimed in to point out that EMS was on standby. He added that “nobody is acting like anybody got injured, the way everybody is moving.”

One local Hell’s Kitchen resident, who otherwise preferred to remain anonymous, had stopped her stroll on an otherwise pleasant day to observe the rubble. She told Chelsea News that she “walks up and down beneath that particular scaffolding all the time.”