Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Monday, October 29, 2012

One57 Crane Never Properly Secured


So said Donald Trump's wife, Melania.

Also:

"All weights are on crane's wrong side --- very precarious below, move out!"

Dunno if her credibility is any better than her husband's, but at yesterday's press conference, Bloomberg said the city had made sure all major construction sites were secure.

Except for this one, at the second most prominent construction site in New York City after the WTC.

Heckuva job, Bloomie.

Heckuva job.

He had better hope that thing doesn't come down during the storm.

That could be one big wreck.

And that's assuming it doesn't cause any casualties.

4 comments:

  1. Perdido -

    Don't get me wrong. I love your blog, and how you don't pull any punches, and appreciate all of your updates on the storm.

    I also know it's your blog, so I understand if you ignore this feedback:

    Mike is scum, and there is no doubt that NYC is both a worse place, and that we are significantly less well-prepared for this storm because of him, both because of direct safety and infrastructure precautions, and also the millions of indirect ways that general prosperity of the population would have allowed people to be better off in a crisis.

    Still, the fact that you seem to be blaming him for every downed tree today in such a knee-jerk way is overplaying your hand a bit. I mean, for how horrible the guy has made everything, I can't believe I almost want to take his side in that sometimes you can't prepare for every disaster: maybe the crane would have fallen no matter what.

    You have a million things to point to every day that make Michael Bloomberg a colossal failure. I just don't see why you need to make up a million-and-first.

    There are going to be many horrible things that will happen today that a decent mayor could have prevented, and a few that would have happened no matter who was mayor.

    Anyways, my own two cents. Am I wrong in thinking like this?

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  2. Nope, you're not wrong to think that, Lorenzo. It's your opinion and you're entitled to it.

    As I wrote a few days ago, I felt like Bloomberg was ho-humming this thing beforehand - unlike Cuomo and Christie.

    He was asked specifically by a reporter at yesterday's 11:30 AM press conference if all major construction sites had been checked and everything had been secured.

    He said they had.

    It turns out this one hadn't been checked, had major violations before, and as the second most prominent construction site in the city, it's not like somebody couldn't have come around to check it out.

    Also, when he said today was going to be just another regular work day and people would be going into work - well, that really stuck in my craw.

    Especially when he said city employees had to come in to work.

    Clearly he has no concern for city workers or he wouldn't have taken the actions he took on that.

    Subways and buses were shut down, Cuomo was saying bridges and tunnels could close as well, and here is Bloomberg lecturing about the service city employees owe to New Yorkers.

    Ironically, the NY Times couldn't find anybody at City Hall or at Quinn's office when they went looking.

    Finally, you will note that I do not like either Chris Christie or Andrew Cuomo and I have been complimentary of their handling of the storm so far.

    I simply do not think Bloomberg handled this well from the beginning - he underplayed the storm, waited very late for an evacuation of Zone A, and put city employees at risk by making today a work day for them. On top of this, its clear from the crane collapse that he was jiving about all major construction sites secured yesterday.

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  3. Point taken, RBE, and thanks again for all the updates. Let's hope as few as possible suffer for our mayor's failings in hours to come.

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  4. Today's DOE email from Walcott is repeating the same old reporting for work mantra for people in central and field offices.

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