About the New York City Crane Safety Technical Working Group
On February 5, 2016, a Liebherr LR 1300 crawler crane collapsed at 60 Worth Street, Manhattan due to high winds, killing one bystander and seriously injuring another. At the time of the accident, the crawler crane was set up to install a new generator and cooling tower onto a building at 60 Hudson Street, Manhattan. On February 24, 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner Rick Chandler established the Crane Safety Technical Working Group. The working group was charged to report its findings and make recommendations within 90 days to:
- Review and recommend new city policies to improve crane safety;
- Evaluate the circumstances surrounding the accident, and;
- Propose additional best practices and regulations to make cranes operating in New York City the safest in the world.
The New York City Crane Safety Technical Working Group solicited input from both the construction industry and the general public, and consulted with the existing Crane Rule Advisory Committee of New York City on April 25, 2016. Members of the working group include the following academic, institutional, and public leaders:
- Mary C. Boyce, Dean of Engineering at The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University
- Wayne A. Crew, General Secretary of the National Academy of Construction
- Bill Goldstein, who most recently served as Senior Advisor to the Mayor for Recovery, Resiliency, and Infrastructure
- Peter J. Madonia, Chief Operating Officer of the Rockefeller Foundation
- Katepalli R. Sreenivasan, President of NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering and Dean of Engineering at New York University
(Sources: 2016 Crane Technical Working Group Report; Press release, February 24, 2016. Mayor de Blasio’s Buildings Crane Technical Working Group)
More in the next blog about crane safety, weather events, weather risk, and the New York City Crane Safety Technical Working Group…