The number of reported construction accidents and injuries in New York City has increased — but there have been fewer deaths this year. The number of reported accidents increased by more than 40 percent through last Friday compared to the same period in 2008. Reported injuries rose by more than 30 percent during that time, [...]
Hundreds of landlords caught permitting unsafe or illegal conditions on their properties were allowed to skip out on millions of dollars in fines, a scathing new audit claims. The audit by city Controller William Thompson found more than 75,000 unpaid building and zoning code fines totaling roughly $202 million as of last October, including some [...]
The federal government is to announce it will require crane operators nationwide to pass a certification test in its first update of crane regulations in nearly four decades, officials said Thursday. The U.S. Department of Labor was to release draft regulations for the first time since 1971, after several deadly crane accidents this year, including [...]
The rigging company that was raising a tower crane in Midtown when it collapsed in March, killing seven people, neglected to inspect the nylon slings it used to hoist a massive steel crane component aloft and was thus unaware that one was damaged, federal regulators said Monday. The findings mean proposed fines of $220,000 for [...]
Fire officials say a worker fell nearly 50 stories to his death this morning at a Midtown construciton site. Police responsing to the call just after 9 a.m. found a construction worker had fallen from scaffolding around the site on West 41st Street and 11th Avenue. Despite previous reports, this was not a crane collapse. [...]
The commissioner of New York’s Buildings Department, in charge of overseeing a complex set of safety codes and approving major construction plans, will no longer need certification as an architect or engineer, under legislation passed by the City Council on Thursday. The decision is intended to widen the pool of candidates for one of the [...]
A new safety effort introduced Sunday by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer could mean costly upgrades for hundreds of skyscrapers. Stringer’s plan would bring more than 800 federal, state, and foreign-owned buildings under the same strict fire and safety codes as city-owned buildings. The move comes nearly a year after the deadly Deutsche Bank fire [...]
Gov. David Paterson signed into law tougher criminal and civil penalties for falsifying crane-inspection licensing exams. Criminal and civil penalties will increase for compromising building crane inspection and licensing under legislation Gov. David Paterson signed Wednesday. The law, effective Nov. 1, makes altering licensing exams a felony. It also imposes fines of up to $5,000 [...]
A city inspector facing charges that he lied about inspecting a crane shortly before it collapsed and killed seven people also filed false inspection reports for two other cranes, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Thursday. The inspector, Edward J. Marquette, 47, was indicted on charges of tampering with public records, filing a false [...]
New York authorities say they’ve concluded a massive effort to crack down on unlicensed home improvement contractors. They’ve issued nearly 700 violations and seized more than 130 vehicles during a five-week sweep. The city’s Department of Consumer Affairs conducted hundreds of routine and undercover inspections along with officials from Westchester and Nassau counties. The department [...]
