Rescuers dig for three still missing in rubble of crane collapse

NEW YORK -- Rescuers dug through debris Sunday for three people still missing in the rubble and wreckage left when a construction crane toppled like a tree across a city block and killed at least four construction workers.

Among the missing were two workers and a woman who was staying in an apartment at a townhouse flattened by the crane.

"Each passing hour, things get a little more grim," Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said. Twenty-four others were injured, including 11 first responders, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Eight remained hospitalized Sunday, officials said.

The crane rose 19 stories and was attached to an apartment tower under construction when it broke away Saturday fell onto buildings as far as a block away.

On Sunday, crews continued to remove pieces of the crane and piles of debris from the damaged buildings as neighborhood residents and a Manhattan borough official raised concerns about city inspections at the apartment tower.

"I warned the Buildings Department on March 4 that it was not sufficiently braced against the building," said Bruce Silberblatt, a retired contractor and vice president of the Turtle Bay Neighborhood Association.

Retired ironworker Kerry Walker, who with his wife lived in the top-floor apartment of the four-story townhouse and left minutes before the collapse, had complained that the crane appeared dangerously unstable, his stepson said.

"He knows all about cranes and said this one had no braces, everything was too minimal," John Viscardi said. "He told one friend on the phone that 'if you don't hear from me, it's because the crane fell on my house."'

City officials said the crane was inspected Friday. At day later, it was being lengthened with a new section, a process known as "jumping," when it fell.

Bloomberg said mechanical failure or human error may have caused the accident. "As far as we can tell, all procedures that were called for were being followed," he said.

Bloomberg said that about 250 cranes are operating in the city on any given day, and the accident should not alarm New Yorkers living near high-rise construction sites.

"Do I think that you should worry if there's a crane across the street? No," Bloomberg said. "This is such a rare thing that I don't think we should worry about it."

The city had issued 13 violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up. "Every large construction site has violations," Bloomberg said.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said Bloomberg should form a multiagency task force to inspect major construction projects.

"It is unacceptable for the Department of Buildings to say yesterday that the 13 open violations on this construction site were ... business as usual," Stringer said. "We can't keep going on like this."

Killed were construction workers Wayne Bleidner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, no age or address available; Anthony Mazza, 39; and Aaron Stephens, 45, of New York City, police said.

The missing woman had come from Miami to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and visit a friend who lived in the brownstone, said John LaGreco, owner of Fubar, a saloon on the ground floor.

She was in her friend's second-floor apartment at the time of the collapse, he said. Her friend was rescued, he said.

On Sunday, the Reliance Construction Group, the project's contractor released a statement expressing sympathy to the families of the dead and the injured and said it was cooperating with government investigators.

Reliance said it had subcontracted different parts of the job and that New York Crane owned the crane. A telephone message left with New York Crane Sunday wasn't returned.

The collapse comes amid a building boom in New York City and follows a spate of construction accidents in recent months, including a few involving cranes.

In 2006, a 13-foot piece of a crane mast that was being dismantled fell and crushed a taxi cab.

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Associated Press writers Marcus Franklin and Richard Pyle contributed to this report.