Crane collapses in lower Manhattan, kills 1

Fire Department and Con Edison crews have been sweeping the area every 15 minutes to make sure it’s safe.

At least one person is dead and others are seriously injured after a construction crane collapsed near Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, NY, Friday.

Worth Street is in busy downtown Manhattan, approximately a half-mile north of the World Trade Center site and a few blocks away from City Hall and other government buildings. He had been sitting in a vehicle parked below the crane. It flipped upside down and stretched almost two city blocks.

The incident occurred in southern Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood at around 8:30 a.m. amid heavy snowfall.

NY was under a winter weather advisory Friday morning, with the forecast calling for snow and sustained winds between 16 miles per hour and 18 miles per hour, and gusts as strong as 29 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service.

The “crawler crane” is one of 376 of this type that dot the city’s skyline, performing work on the city’s towers.

Robert Harold heard a crashing sound as the rig fell right outside his office window at the Legal Aid Society.

The crane was marked with a logo for Bay Crane, the company involved in a collapse in Midtown previous year that injured 10 people. There was damage on the roof of a nearby building and debris littered the street.

Public transportation is delayed and subway trains are avoiding the region as a result of crane that was collapsed.

The building’s owners declined to comment. Harold said he also saw a person lying motionless on the street.

Further details were not immediately known.