Afternoon Rescue at UWS Construction Site

Reader Austen took some photographs of an injured man being lifted from an Upper West Side construction site. A firefighter and the injured man, who is strapped on a board, is being hoisted by a crane to the ground level. The site is at Amsterdam and West 77th, where the Dakota stables once stood but where, after a fight with preservationists, condos will soon rise.

It's unclear what caused the man's injury, but the Department of Buildings has been trying to improve construction site safety by reaching out to workers (here's the DOB's construction safety site). Some food for thought: Late last month, Governor Spitzer vetoed a building inspection measure that would have required the DOB to more regularly inspect buildings cited for hazardous conditions; a Bureau of Labor Statistics report found that on-the-job construction deaths in NYC jumped from 23 in 2005 to 43 in 2006; OSHA doesn't think the DOB has enough oversight over construction sites; and yesterday, a building under demolition collapsed.