‘No evidence’ of further danger from Manhattan crane collapse, buildings chief says

No known safety risks are lingering days after a crane partially detached and crashed onto a busy Manhattan street this week, Department of Buildings Commissioner James Oddo said on Friday.

A fire in the cabin of the crane weakened its supports, causing its partial collapse onto 10th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, which left at least 12 people injured on Wednesday, officials said. A string of inspections by city authorities and engineers showed that the crane, the construction area at 550 10th Ave and the neighboring building are now secure, Oddo said.

“I want to reiterate that from everything we have seen up close, the tower crane is stable, and we have found no evidence that it currently poses a hazard to public safety,” Oddo said during a regularly scheduled public safety briefing on Friday.

But Oddo emphasized the investigation into to the cause of the fire and subsequent collapse is ongoing.

“We are looking at every entity,” he said. “There's a general contractor involved. There is a crane owner involved. There’s the crane user, the crane operator, there's the engineer — all of those entities and every other variable in this situation will be looked at and considered.”

Oddo said that all loose debris from the construction tower, the neighboring building and the damaged crane itself has been removed from any precarious positions or secured to offset any danger of falling. Glass, concrete and other materials that were seen scattered along 10th Avenue on Wednesday have mostly been removed, reopening car traffic, he added.

A larger crane is on the way to remove the damaged tower crane on top of the skyscraper. A smaller crane has already removed the collapsed boom, which has been cut into smaller pieces by workers and taken away from the scene.

“Tower crane collapses like this are thankfully an extremely rare occurrence in our city,” Oddo said. “That said, we can all agree that even one of these incidents is entirely too many.”