Buildings Commissioner To Testify Before Council
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City Council Member Jessica Lappin, of Manhattan, says she hopes to get answers today from the Department of Buildings on how a fatal crane collapse in her Upper East Side district occurred last month.
“I have many unanswered questions,” Ms. Lappin said yesterday in an interview. “What have they done to change things at the agency internally? What have they done to change things in terms of process? What happened that day so we can prevent it from happening again?”
Ms. Lappin says that she has been unable to secure a meeting with the city’s buildings commissioner, Patricia Lancaster, for three weeks and still does not know the city’s plans for the accident site’s future. Ms. Lancaster will testify today at a council hearing on the crane disaster, which killed seven people and leveled a townhouse at East 51st Street. Since the crane collapse, a buildings inspector, Edward Marquette, has been arrested for allegedly faking reports that he had inspected the crane 11 days before the accident.
