In a Times piece this morning Jim Dwyer takes a look at all the recent construction tragedies and concludes that “the city’s construction business, particularly outside of Manhattan, is becoming the modern version of the 19th-century coal mine.” Most construction-related fatalities in recent years have been in the outer boroughs, and Dwyer notes that at many smaller, non-Manhattan development sites oversight only comes from the sorely overstretched DOB. Although Bloomberg and DOB chief Patricia Lancaster have tried to clean up the agency, hard questions remain about how the city is going to regulate its projected $45 billion in construction growth over the next decade. “It could be they are completely outgunned,” Dwyer writes. “This era may serve as a prologue.”
Building Roulette: The New Victorian Coal Mine [NY Times]
Photo by mkaggen.