(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images; Michael Nagle/Getty Images)

A Deadly Year
With more and more buildings going up at faster and faster rates with fewer inspectors to monitor them, the city has seen an alarming number of construction-related deaths in the past several years: eighteen in 2006, twelve in 2007, and eleven just three months into 2008. Among them:

1. On January 14, Ukrainian construction worker Yuriy Vanchytskyy fell 42 stories, and was decapitated, after a temporary floor gave way beneath him at the Trump Soho condominium-hotel building.

2. On January 30, Mexican construction worker Jose Palacios fell eleven stories to his death at a condominium development at 525 Clinton Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, after the scaffolding he was standing on collapsed.

3. On March 15, seven people were killed— six construction workers and a visitor from Florida—when a nylon strap holding a steel support apparently broke loose at a high-rise condominium construction site at 303 East 51st Street, sending a 22-story crane toppling onto the buildings and streets below.

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by Michael Idov
• Table of Contents: Apr 7, 2008 issue of New York | Subscribe!