Stages of Rubbernecking

The Story

A crane in my neighborhood fell on Saturday.

My Story

I was at the office -- one of those marathon days where everything seems to take much longer than it should -- and didn't know about it until a colleague emailed me from his home: "Check local news, a crane near your building collapsed on 50th btw 2 and 3rd."

In fact, it was on 51st, between 1st and 2nd, and as I checked out the news reports, I realized with a chill that it was the crane that I walked past or even directly under every single morning and every single night. Yesterday morning, in fact, I walked by it on the way to the office, noted the construction workers in their leather jackets standing on the sidewalk, and thought, "Huh. Working on Saturday. You and me both, boys."

Like 9/11, I didn't realize the seriousness of it until an hour or two after the fact, when the newspapers started calling it one of the worst construction accidents in New York history.

I worked until 10:30 pm Saturday night, almost purposely avoiding going home. A block or two away from the office and I could already hear the helicopters circling. I headed down 50th Street and got directed by a police officer to head over to 1st Avenue via 52nd Street. When I got to my block, it was cordoned off. A handful of people were standing there. I told the police officer on the other side of the gates that I lived on this block. "You need to wait until someone can escort you to your building," she said.

A woman behind me with impeccable blonde hair and chic black coat complained loudly to a friend, "I just want to go home, and those cops over there are standing around chit-chatting. They're like, eating donuts or something."

About five minutes later, one of those officers came over and a handful of people headed toward her, calling out their building numbers. I did too, and we all crossed over.

The blonde woman took the female police officer's arm in a friendly way. "I'm sorry about earlier, but it's not like you can help me if a brick comes flying our way," she said. The officer could not have cared less.

The night doorman greeted me solemnly. He had been there when the crane came down, and we both shook our heads over the four construction workers who had died. The thought came to me that I might have seen one of them this morning.

When I got into my apartment and was able to charge my phone, I found four voice mails, three from my dad and one from my mom. Having run out of battery earlier in the afternoon, I hadn't gotten any of them, and I hastened to call them back. My dad, who had visited a few weeks ago, remembered walking past that crane as well. He sounded relieved when we talked. I'm standing at my window, I told him, and I can see the vertical part of the crane still resting against the apartment building across the street. (My mom? I think she turned off her phone. I left a message. Thanks, mom! Glad to know you care.)

I talked to the Ringleted One and Joiner after that, repeating how strange it was to see the crane from my window. I took a few pictures from my 5th floor window:



The Random Thought

Looking at the pictures (which are weirdly and awesomely clear despite the filthy glass of my apartment windows), the crane almost looks like it could belong there, couldn't it? Part of some work, purposely angled against a building across the street. It was more surreal seeing it from the street, like some giant, careless child had left his toy ladder haphazardly lying about.

But the worst part of the damage isn't in these photos. That would be the townhouse on 50th Street that was pulverized by the flying jib (the arm of the crane), which was knocked off by the impact of the boom (the vertical part) tipping over and hitting the apartment building now shoring it up. The side of the apartment building next to the townhouse was partly shorn off by the jib on its way down.

And worse still is the fact that four members of the engineers union are dead. They went out of their front doors yesterday morning into the promising, warmish air, sipped their coffee with the guys, laughed about this or that, got down to the business of jacking that crane up so they could finish building the second half of condo building, and then -- something so terribly wrong. The unbelievable sight of a several-ton steel lattice column falling ever so slowly over. The brain catching up and saying no no no, irrationally thinking bring it back, bring it back. Do over. Do over.

What does it all mean? What was it all for? I ask because I've been thinking about this a lot this winter. You know when you drive past those cemeteries by the highway, and you think for a fleeting moment about all those people in the ground, marked by this gravestone or that, and you wonder: Who were you? How did you live? What were you like? Does anyone remember you? Does anyone mourn? Whether anyone does or not, what difference did you make? Did your life make any mark? What was it all for? What does it all mean?

Spin Control

As a minor but personally fascinating side note, it's been very, very interesting to read a Times story from the first rough call-in draft to the final polished version. I kept coming back to it every few minutes as I sat in my office, so I read all (roughly 8, I think) versions of the story.

The first few versions were straightforward, almost simplistic -- the crane was described as "a big, white crane, about 20 stories high." Now there's a helpful graphic and diagram of the crane, with the proper names, and a visual of how it fell. At one point, the exposed apartments in the building with the side partly shorn away were described as something one would expect to see in Baghdad, what with the poignant pink suitcase falling out of a closet, and bookcases and shelves disarrayed. Now that sentence is gone. At some point, the simple style gave way to almost sensationalist phrasing, complete with the words "raining death and destruction" in the first sentence.

At one point too, the governor-to-be was quoted in the article as describing the scene thusly: “very gory,” with “blood in the street.” Those quotes are no longer in the article, instead relegated back to a Cityroom blog post. (Incidentally -- and forgive my ignorance, but -- isn't the lieutenant governor legally blind? How did he see the "gory" "blood in the street"? Also, isn't that a bit much? And what's with the mayor calling it "carnage"? As far as we know, four people were killed and 13 injured. A tragic accident, yes, but -- "carnage"?)

Lastly

I'll never get to sleep with those firetrucks and searchlights out there.