NYC High-Rise Accidents Prompt Calls for Better Safety Oversight

A spate of accidents at under-construction high rises in New York City has some city officials clamoring to require additional safety managers on some project sites.

The city buildings department wants to require site safety managers at construction sites for buildings at least 10 stories high. Currently, the managers are required at building sites of at least 15 stories.

In addition, Commissioner Patricia Lancaster also wants general contractors and concrete manufacturers to register with her department for any type of construction work. The rationale? The new requirements would allow the city greater power to discipline contractors who don’t follow building codes, she says.

Those changes — proposed during a City Council hearing earlier this month — follow the death of a construction worker last month who fell 40 stories off a Donald Trump tower.

There were five deaths in 2007 stemming from accidents at city high-rise construction sites — up from only one in 2006.

Injuries, too, are on the rise; 52 workers were hurt at high rise sites last year, up from 32 the previous year.