SKY TERROR, 2nd crane collapse in manhattan!

A crane collapsed at 1st Avenue and 91st Street on the Upper East Side around 8:15 a.m. According to initial reports, there are people trapped inside. There is wreckage on 91st Street, with FDNY and other emergency responder going through the rubble. The crane was located at a new construction site.

Crane safety and new construction has come under new scrutiny after the March 15 crane collapse that claimed the lives of 7 people--a civilian and six workers at a new condominium on East 51st Street. Earlier this week, the Department of Buildings announced that its inspectors will no longer be on site when cranes are built "or made taller". Per the NY Times, "Instead, inspectors will make spot checks of the crane raisings, known as jumps, and of safety meetings at which procedures for each jump must be laid out. The FDNY is reporting two fatalities at this point. Apparently the top of a crane--including the cab-- fell off (possibly 10 stories) and hit a building across the street (it looks like a penthouse across the street has a corner taken out of it). WABC 7 reports the crane may have been in full extension, snapped in half and hit the building.

The under-construction building is the Azure (as Curbed suggested), which is supposed to be 34 stories high. It is located at 333 East 91 Street, or 1765 First Avenue--the northwest corner of 91st and First.

First Avenue is closed between 86th street and 94th Street. 91st Street is closed between 2nd and York Avenues. The M15, M31, and M86 buses are diverted. The damaged building across from the Azure seems to be 1749 First Avenue (based on Duane Reade's locator, as there's a Duane Reade on the ground floor)-- the penthouse has a huge gash in it and there's a huge hole in the north side of the building, maybe six floors up. It's unclear if anyone in that building was injured. WNBC's Dan Rice says it seems like the turntable of the crane fell into the building, creating this hole that's about 2-3 stories high.

This all happened at 91st and 1st ave or 911! This is aprox. 76 days after the St. Patties day collapse. It hit the top of AZURE Condos on 333 East 91 Street, or 1765 First Avenue. The term azure derives from the Persian لاژورد (lazhward), which was the name of a place in modern Turkestan known for its deposits of lapis lazuli (“stone of lazhward”). The word was adopted into Old French by the twelfth century. The use of the term spread through the practice of heraldry, where “azure” represents a blue color in the system of tinctures. In engravings, it is represented as a region of parallel horizontal lines, or by the abbreviation az. or b. In practice, azure has been represented by any number of shades of blue. In later heraldic practice a lighter blue, called bleu celeste (“sky blue”), is sometimes specified.

Too weird, the numerology is impossible to ignore!