Gothamist: Should the Collapsed Crane Have Been Bolted?BREAKING: Buildings Inspector Arrested Over False Report

JacqueMehoff

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:10:53 -0500

he's the scapegoat.

west side Michael

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:29:56 -0500

Yes! Now they are now only FOUR crane inspectors in our great Department of Buildings. Anyway last Saturday I wrote this blog about DOB inspectors looking at jobs without leaving their city owned car and also via the cellphone. This guy is just a dupe for the Bloomberg crowd to say something about this horror.

Goomba

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:15:23 -0500

Some guy in construction paid off a soonad inspector. This isn't news this is New York.

wer1212

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:33:31 -0500

babyhitler - WRONG. No - they would not have held. I don't think you understand physics. Let's put it this way, if you screwed 4 bolts (relative in size to the bolts being screwed to the baseplate) through your feet to the floor of the subway, and then re-enforced your legs so your knees could not bend, and the subway took off, you would not only fall over, but you ankles would snap.

JGNY

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:55:13 -0500

Schwartize is right. Bolting the bottom would have only created a different point where the moment would fail, higher up perhaps. Without proper bracing to the building it would have fallen no matter what the base plate connection was.

TimSPC

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:49:07 -0500

It's a little insensitive to have "BREAKING" in all caps in this headline.

MissMeowy

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:39:01 -0500

Marquette was arrested this afternoon: From the NY Times: "A Buildings Department inspector, Edward J. Marquette, has been arrested and charged with lying to New York City authorities about inspecting the crane that collapsed on Saturday afternoon, killing seven people, injuring dozens of others and causing widespread property damage."

Snoopy

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:30:58 -0500

^ A lot of that would depend on what it would be bolted to. OK so the bolts wouldn't pop but whatever it was bolted to would probably break loose. Kind of like having your shoes nailed to a two foot square of plywood. If you go, the plywood square would go also. The bolting would only help the crane from shifting laterally off the base which helped distribute the load.

babyhitler

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:17:51 -0500

shwartzie - that's presuming that the bolts were made out of human cartilidge, which they aren't. if the bolts were strong enough they would have held.

drewo

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:12:29 -0500

The inspector "filed paperwork saying that he inspected the crane -- but he never did." A civil servant shirking his duty? Shocking!!!

Art Stewel

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:11:47 -0500

Next story - a culture of kickbacks and false reports at DOB.

JacqueMehoff

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:59:21 -0500

wow, that's something I wasn't expecting. You'd think it would be the RA/PE and such getting arrested for filing false plans.

Schwartzie

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:54:31 -0500

Bolts at the baseplate wouldn't have prevented this accident. Have you ever tried riding the subway with your feet right next to each other? It's almost impossible not to fall when the train accelerates, decelerates, or corners if you're not holding on. Now imagine your feet are still next to each other but are now glued to the floor and you're still riding without holding on. You're still going to fall. Overturning moments or torques act on a body's center of gravity, not at the pivot point. This is problematic for anything critically narrower than it is tall.

buckygirl23

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:49:14 -0500

HOUSKEEPING?