This time of year, it is difficult to go anywhere in the city without encountering construction sites. Of course, construction foremen and government regulators ensure that these zones are safe for residents, pedestrians and motorists, right?
Sadly, there is an unacceptably high rate of noncompliance with code at NYC job sites. When construction safety shortcuts are made there are a variety of deadly risks, but perhaps none as great as falling objects. A recent accident in Manhattan evidences how sloppy work site safety can put the lives of dozens at risk.
An Upper West Side residential building was under construction when more than 100 bricks dislodged from a 12-foot-high parapet fall. The bricks went into a free fall, raining down onto a shed and scaffolding. Multiple bricks tumbled through the windows of occupied apartments.
Miraculously, nobody was injured – not even the construction workers. Officials from the Department of Buildings issued violations and shut down the site.
Contractors should consider themselves fortunate, however, because they would have been potentially liable for the death or injury of a passerby or resident.
Source: DNAInfo.com, “Dozens Of Bricks Crash Through Sidewalk Shed At UWS Building, FDNY Says,” Sybile Penhirin, Aug. 25, 2014
