Neither more nor less

Above: Tonight almost a week after the sections fell to ground the gap in the scaffold structure has been replaced but the protective netting has not been replaced . The upper level of the scaffold frame has been removed and thus when men work at the uppermost level there will be no protective netting to surround them and thus protect the public below. Sorry ...but this is not good enough .
Above : The scaffolding installed as it should be : all the way up to the top of the building and completely enclosed in protective netting .This picture was taken 8 September just before the too small front -end loader was brought to the scene to lift materials to the roof .
Above : This machine is not a crane it is a large front-end loader and though cheaper to rent than a properly sized crane it should not have been used here to lift materials to the roof because it required that a considerable portion of the scaffolding and the protective netting had to be removed .This scaffolding and protective netting were never replaced after the front-end loader left the construction site .

As was reported in the previous post a too small lifting device was used to lift materials to the roof of 120 and the use of this device required that scaffolding and protective netting be removed from the scaffold structure . According to NYPD Emergency Services personnel strong winds and a too large and inadequately secured tarp lifted two sections of another scaffold , placed on the tarp on the roof , into the air and just over the parapet of the building to descend onto the top of an automobile and onto the sidewalk below .If the scaffolding had been inplace with its enclosing protective netting as seen in the picture above from 8 September ,most likely the sections tossed from the roof would have been caught and deflected into the interior of the scaffold structure . This is why scaffolding and protective netting are required to be in place as in the picture from 8 September : its all there to protect the people and property below .

The lifting device that should have been used to lift materials to the roof of 120 should have been a telescoping boom crane large enough , with a long enough reach that the scaffolding and protective netting did not have to be removed . Certainly the large front-end loader was cheaper to rent than the properly sized crane .

There have been two deaths related to faulty scaffolding and a very serious crane accident recently in this part of town . We are just lucky that someone was not killed or injured here this time at 120 St Marks Place .In this current construction frenzy all that really seems to matter is money . Sorry again ... but that is just not acceptable.

P.S 5 November , 2006 . Concerning the automobile that was damaged by the section of interior scaffolding ( separate from the scaffolding assembly at the front of the building ) that had been , according to NYPD ESS personnel ,left lying on the tarp on the roof and that was launched by the tarp and wind over the front of the building , the damaged vehicle was damaged , at least according to the body shop estimate that I saw , to the amount of $14000 .The damage was much worse than it appears in the pictures because the structural framing of the roof of the vehicle was damaged requiring that most of the the roof structure be re-placed : in short the vehicle was totaled .

After somthing like a years absence former East Village shylock and fence "Loanshark Bob " Marion is back on avenue A . Is he back in business ? Who knows .

P.S. 9 November ,2006 . I have been told that our local shylock has been in Mexico this last year and most recently in Oaxaca for the riots and protests .

Above: View of the two sections ,one in planter , of scaffolding tossed from the roof . In the background NYPD Emergency Services personnel are entering the 120 building to check conditions on the roof from which the two sections of scaffolding were tossed by the high winds and a large tarp .
Above: Damaged automobile in front of 120 St.Marks Place . Owner of vehicle is videoing his damaged automobile . Where this vehicle was sitting when damaged , Jim and Jesse Jane once lived and slept as can be seen in previous posts on this blog .
Above: Section of scaffolding resting in planter made by Mosaic Man
Above : View of smashed sun-roof and severely dented roof frame of damaged automobile
Above : Rear window of damaged automobile
Above: Scaffolding and the blue tarp above that lifted in the wind and tossed to ground the two sections of scaffold . Note the hanging , partially unattatched black protective netting .
Above: Sunday in the late afternoon the tarp is still furiously billowing and whipping in the wind .
Above: A view of a portion of the scaffolding at 120 St. Marks Place which shows unbolted cross bracing , missing cross bracing and an odd looking V-shaped wooden "brace" at the left side of the image. Also note the lack of protectve netting .This netting is used to protect the public from falling objects .

Look at the open space without cross-bracing and protective netting .This gap in the protective structure that should have been in place is exactly above the damaged vehicle and in the line of fall of the scaffold sections . If the scaffolding and protective netting had been in place up to the top of the scaffold structure , as it should have been , then perhaps the protective netting would have caught the scaffold sections and directed their fall to inside the wooden protected base area at the foot of the scaffold structure and not out into the street and sidewalk where they did fall doing damage to a vehicle . This gap in the scaffold structure likely exists because the crane used to lift materials to the roof was too short to approach the building and thus sections of scaffolding and protective netting were removed to make way for this too small crane .
Above: View of scaffolding at upper level. The scaffold structure seems a bit uncertain being incompletely assembled , poorly maintained and carelessly rigged . Note the lack of the black protective netting which is supposed to be in-place at all heights to protect the public from falling objects .


Saturday evening 28 October ,2006 two sections of scaffoling fell to ground at 120 St. Marks Place with one section damaging the roof and rear window of an automobile parked in front of the building .Luckily no one was injured .

According to NYPD Emergency Services personnel the sections had been placed on a large tarp on the roof and in the high winds the tarp lifted as a wing and tossed the two relatively heavy metal sections to ground . This isn't the first such trouble at 120 . Other things have fallen to ground there . Other accidents have occurred and people have been injured . There is even a video of one of the injured workers wrything on the floor in pain after the collapse of a stairwell which occurred during an unpermitted structural modification of the building . There have been numerous stop work orders at this building which have mostly been ignored . There is now and has been for a week or so , if the Department of Buildings profile for this building is to be believed , a stop work order on this building . In spite of this stop work order , work has continued unabated at 120 St. Marks Place for the last week or more .

Any one that works high-up in buildings knows that you do not leave tarps to blow in the wind . You can not weigh them down with weights of some sort : they must be secured with lines . They must be securely tied down at multiple points . In fact its just not a good idea to use tarps at height at all . But this is the team of Benjamin Shaoul working at this building and such disastrous events are to be expected . Check Shaoul's history here at this blog and then Google him .

As always , click on an image to enlarge it .