Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Developing: Partial boom collapse at 749 FDR Drive and 6th Street; no injuries reported


[Via @FDNY]

Emergency responders and news crews have descended on 749 FDR Drive this afternoon following a partial boom collapse outside an NYCHA building at Sixth Street. No injuries have been reported, per the FDNY after the freestanding crane boom collapsed against a 6-story building in the Jacob Riis House complex.

One of the buildings in the Riis Houses complex was evacuated as a precaution, an FDNY spokesperson told Patch. Traffic has also been stopped along the FDR (southbound lane) and Avenue D.


It was a close call for one resident, as ABC-7 pointed out:

Cynthia Martin, a building resident, said the boom damaged a window in the apartment where she lives with her children.

"The glass shattered inside the apartment. It went in, and (my son) heard a loud boom, and they ran, and all the glass was in the apartment ... my son was sitting right next to it, and thank god for the curtains (were) right there, but all the glass came in ... I felt like I was having a heart attack. I couldn't even get here fast enough," she said.

EVG reader Garrett Rosso shared this video from earlier this afternoon showing the damaged crane ...



The city has been upgrading buildings in the Riis complex in recent months as part of the Sandy Recovery Program Restoration.

Updated 7:30 p.m.

The @FDNY account shared this view of the damage...



Updated 7:45 p.m.

The FDR is open again in both directions...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So that explains the helicopter activity this afternoon. What a useless wa$te of taxpayer$' $$$.

Anonymous said...

Yeah that NYPD helicopter flew really low and was loud and annoying...what was the point was it going to lift the crane up and fly it away? They have to use another crane and a huge flatbed truck to take the broken crane away a helicopter was of no use.

Anonymous said...

What can be done to stop the NYOD helicopters? I see that Carolyn Maloney wants to ban all helicopters after some private helicopters crashed. I think the police copters are far more intrusive and should be stopped.

Anonymous said...

It was mostly news helicopters... which is like 8+ stations, so thats impossible to stop, especially on a slow news day

Rick said...

Totally agree. News helicopters are unstoppable. They will cover the news from the sky. Even if its not news worthy. They don't give a $h_t.