This last weekend, likely on Saturday Sunday morning or later this week, weather permitting, they will be inserting two four more sections into the tower crane, raising the top by four eight stories. Most of the action can be seen on the level of our 26th floor observation deck, and as close as most observers ever get. They start early, about 5AM. Take hot coffee.
The order seems to be:
- The wrap-around blue cage is now down about the 26th floor, above the new gray support collar. It was lifted to the top and was attached to the bottom of an existing tower section.
- Then they carefully balance the horizontal crane so that nothing tilts as they loosen the bolts between the two top sections.
- Then they can push up the top of the tower from below, with the cage still surrounding the ascending vertical. This stops when they have made enough room for a new two-story-tall blue tower section to be inserted through the west-facing opening in the cage. Its bottom is bolted to the section below.
- The process will repeat for a second inserted section, but with using a scissor lifting mechanism (visible on the east side with its control panel).
Things can go wrong in this process, if you recall the crane that fell across Mercer Street two years ago, killing two drivers and two ironworkers. While the horizontal section is too short to touch Skyline East during ordinary operation, a tower bend at half-height could reach us if the fall line is toward the south. Hopefully, they will have the good sense to point the horizontal beam westward so the fall line would be into a parking lot.
From our everyday observation, this contractor’s safety culture seems quite good. But this will be an ironworker crew sent by the crane’s owner. The Morrow crew for the 2019 Mercer Street collapse, during similar procedures to shorten their tower crane, removed some 50 bolts (pins) in advance of need, allowing the vertical to bend in a wind gust (23 mph gusts had been reported). It was standard procedure at Morrow, the crane operator. Four people died. You’d think that would have resulted in a criminal prosecution for reckless endangerment. The city and state safety standards are, apparently, not very high when it comes to tower cranes.
