NEW YORK – FDNY officials say two small cranes fell on scaffolding outside of a building in Midtown Manhattan on Friday afternoon.
Around 3 p.m., it happened at a house off of 38th Street on Ninth Avenue that was empty and being built on.
Officials say that a small spider crane on the roof was moving a second small crane from the ninth floor to the tenth floor when the crane on the roof fell off. The scaffolding below and a tree on the sidewalk were broken when both cranes fell.
A family can be seen running from under the falling scaffolding in a surveillance film. Thank goodness no one got hurt.
“It’s an incredibly lucky day,” FDNY Assistant Chief Mike Meyers said. “We consider this a win for the city of New York and obviously the people we’re here to protect.”
Ninth Avenue was closed during the evening rush hour because of the fall.
Witness Accounts:
“We just heard this loud noise. It almost sounded like when somebody’s moving a dumpster, and it’s just that rattling metal. But it just went on for so long, so we knew something was clearly wrong. When we turned around to look, we just saw the tail end of the scaffolding falling down,” witness Karen Detoro said.
“I saw the tree go flying. As it fell, it was like a big impact, like I said, it was a loud boom,” witness Stephane Bibeau said.
The FDNY and the Department of Buildings are looking into it.
