By ERIN CALABRESE and ADAM NICHOLS
May 31, 2008
The crane that smashed through an Upper East Side apartment building yesterday was nearly 20 years old and collapsed after bolts holding it together snapped under the strain of lifting thousands of tons, experts said yesterday.
The section that fell apart had been pulled out of service last year after inspectors found faults, two sources told The Post.
"It went under a major overhaul," said veteran crane inspector Greg Teslia, who has nearly 40 years of experience.
"They overhauled it and then they put it back in service."
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Workers at the site said the towering crane had just lifted 8,000 pounds of wood from the seventh floor of the 23-story building, dropping it on East 91st Street.
They had unloaded the wood and the crane's arm was being directed around to First Avenue to pick up a load of electrical supplies when the cab came loose and toppled off the rest of the crane, they said.
"There was nothing on the hook," the worker said.
"It came tumbling down like a house of cards."
A site worker confirmed that the part - a swiveling turntable that connects the cab to the rest of the crane - had been taken off a crane at a work site at West 46th Street and Eighth Avenue last year, apparently repaired and put into the crane that collapsed yesterday on East 91st.
And another said it had to be taken out of service two months ago - and more repairs were done just in the last couple of weeks.
"I know they've had some repairs to the turntables within the last week and a half," he said.
"They've done some welding work . . . [There are] some unique problems with that crane. It's more than 18 years old."
Teslia said TV footage of the scene showed that more than 50 bolts, which were supposed to latch two halves of the turntable together, had broken.
"Looking at those pictures, it cannot be anything else," he said.
"The bottom half is still attached to the crane, the top half and everything that was fastened to it was gone.
"You can clearly see more than 50 empty bolt holes. They all failed, I can guarantee you."
Mayor Bloomberg said at a press conference yesterday that the top of the crane had "snapped off."
"We don't know why it snapped off and we will certainly do an investigation," he said.
