More Falling Steel at Goldman Sachs' Downtown Site

The Tribeca site where 14,000 pounds of steel fell on a construction trailer last December was hit with more violations yesterday when a "piece of steel fell 18 stories onto a baseball field where dozens of children were playing." Really--the Goldman Sachs site at 200 Murray Street is next to a baseball field and Little Leaguers were playing there yesterday.

Apparently construction workers were bringing up a 30" by 30" piece of steel in an outdoor elevator; the steel was going to be used as a "bridge" to help unload materials. The Daily News explains the steel "plunged...diagonally across from Ground Zero, shortly before 4 p.m. and ended up planted vertically in the outfield." Little League games were canceled and one parents said, "This is the worst place in the world [for this to happen] because on Saturday, it's where everyone is. A piece of sheet metal coming down from the sky while your kid is playing baseball - it's dangerous."

No one was hurt and the Department of Buildings issued five violations and a stop-work order. DOB acting commissioner Robert LiMandri who said the incident was "unacceptable" and said, "The Buildings Department had issued the general contractor, Tishman Construction, a variance to perform work on the weekend. However, this variance did not include the delivery of Sheetrock."

The last incident at the site occurred in December, when a sling broke and 14,000 pounds of steel studs fell 25 stories from a crane, with a quarter of them ripping through a construction trailer; an architect inside the trailer was paralyzed.