Tragic Construction Accident at 639 6th Avenue

Wow, the rendering sure looks better than the (nearly) finished product.

Posted by: Anonymous at July 9, 2007 10:27 AM

god i love/hate this blog. first the post, which begins with another blow by blow about a naughty developer who builds pedestrian housing, then works it way into an accident report that suggests that a worker may have died, hard to say. But he definitely was young and Ecuadorian.
then the classic Bronstoner comment at 10:27!

Posted by: Anonymous at July 9, 2007 10:42 AM

I don't get the point of your post, 10:42. The fall of the worker is the unfortunate icing on the cake of an altogether messy piece of business. Mr. B's asking about the fate of the worker is a fair question. He's not the NY Times, he's a blogger sitting at a desk, who depends on tips and information from other people. I would imagine the worker's ethnicity is stated only to hint that the construction is being done by non-union workers, who are probably paid less than they should be, and are all too often not working under safe, OSHA conditions.

The statements of others, well, you know what they say about opinions....

Posted by: Anonymous at July 9, 2007 10:57 AM

The fact that the rendering is so different from the final building tells me something about the developer. It is an interesting juxtaposition, regardless of asthetic concerns.

My guess here is that the developer stretched the truth (based the claims in the BSA appeal and, perhaps, the significant changes to the building design) and cut corners here.

The accident is tragic -- horrible, horrible news. Whether it had more to do with the contractor, developer or was just an awful mistake, I can't speculate on. Tragic falls like this, however, are largely avoidable.

Posted by: Anonymous at July 9, 2007 11:13 AM

I didn't read anything in the mainstream press about this accident though I did hear about it from folks in the neighborhood. Was someone killed/injured or is this story made up? I can't believe with all the recent new safety scafolding legislation and the Mayor himself commenting on the dangers, that the story was not covered in the Post for example, The DoB would have shut the job down, no?

Posted by: Anonymous at July 9, 2007 11:17 AM

10:57 here - sorry, tom, did not mean that in the way you took it. The worker's accident was not in any way "icing on the cake." I sincerely apologize for perhaps trivializing his plight. That was not my intent, just the opposite. I hate to hear about these incidents, because they are avoidable, usually, and are usually a direct result of greed and negligence, which pisses me off no end, because it only accentuates that third world help is expendable and replaceable.

Posted by: Anonymous at July 9, 2007 1:41 PM

November 2, 2006

MAYOR'S OFFICE, BUILDINGS DEPARTMENT AND OSHA ANNOUNCE FORMATION OF A
SCAFFOLD WORKER SAFETY TASK FORCE
"One fatality in our City is one too many," said Commissioner Lancaster. "This Task Force will allow all of the stakeholders to put our heads together to address this critical issue. It's important that we step forward and ensure that everyone in the industry - from the scaffold worker on the rig to his manager - understands all of the existing requirements and abides by them."

"Falls are a leading cause of construction fatalities-we have been working with the public and private sectors to eliminate scaffold incidents," said Richard Mendelson, Manhattan Area Director for the U.S. Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). "We look forward to working even more closely with City agencies, employers and workers-through both outreach and enforcement efforts-to end these tragic occurrences."

Posted by: Anonymous at July 9, 2007 7:49 PM

This is disgusting. I bet somebody has read these posts on here that knows Mr. Angel. I have met him a couple of times, but found him so swarmy that I didn't both keeping his contact info. So if anybody on here actually has dealt with him please ask him to post on here about this incident. Is he acting as the GC? Who pulled the necessary permits for him?

Posted by: Anonymous at July 9, 2007 9:28 PM