Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 7

A Towering Problem of Safety Objects rain from high-rise sites alarming city officials neighbors agreed that contractors be required within 90 days to install both horizontal and vertical netting at all sugar construction sites in the city The nets more effective than the wooden catch-platforms now in use at many sites and likely will cut down the amount of falling debris Yet few contractors used By Robert Friedman Lucy Garnett was walking along West 57th Street one afternoon in April when a plywood board sailed off a high floor at a nearby construction site The board splintered in midair and two pieces of wood crashed at her feet one on either aide of her always thought I'd die of cancer or a heart says Garnett a com-iter science professor at Baruch Col-1 never thought Td be hit by something falling off a building" Garnett was lucky A few weeks earlier Vickie Merila five months pregnant at the time was hit in the face bv a foot-long piece of lumber that fell from the same building at 977 Eighth Ave She needed 70 stitches And in June a 80-year-old actor John Nichols was killed near the same mot when a four-by-four dropped on his head from more than 40 stories up Nichols was the fourth pedestrian killed by debris falling from high-rise construction sites in Manhattan over the past five years At least two construction workers also have died in similar accidents during that period Those numbers may seem small but a New York Nowaday study of city records and interviews with people living and working in the shadow of ma- -jor construction sites has uncovered dozens of incidents over the past two years of material falling off buildings hitting cars crashing onto -roofs of 1 -J- and animatimaa "It has to become law before anyone is going to do says one executive who thinks netting is a good idea "Whatever my personal beliefs I can only do what everyone else is doing Otherwise Fd put myself out of That attitude critics say is symptomatic of what ails New York Citys $2-billion-a-year construction industry Simply put safety costs money And in a fast-paced business where comers are cut as often as they are made many contractors cant afford to pay dose attention to safety Even with new netting legislation a number of serious concerns remain about city construction-site safety: Although New York has one of the stiffest building codes in the country enforcement is lax The city has only 16 field inspectors to keep an eye on 73 active construction sites which are visited on average three times a month Los Angeles by contrast has 45 inspectors who visit construction sites once a day Fines for safety violations are so low ranging from $150 to $10000 for repeat offenders that Buildings Commissioner Smith concedes they are hardly a deterrent Safety is left largely in the of contractors an arrangement that allows the city to avoid liability for accidents The Buildings Department requires that a licensed safety manager be present at all times at every mqjor construction site but these managers are hired and paid for by the general contractor creating a potential conflict of interest The city doesn't even have a procedure for revoking a safety license General contractors and construction managers say they have only limited control over safety conditions Most workers at a construction site are employed by subcontractors belong to unions and cant be fined or Continued on Page 23 it six months of this year alone 26 incidents of falling debris an average of one a week have been reported either to the Department of Buildings which monitors construction-site safety or in the press Many others have gone unreported Construction company officials some of whom asked not to be identified acknowledge there is a problem One said his own son had been hit by a piece of concrete splitting his hard hat while working at a construction site in New York Says Buildings Commissioner Charles Smith who keeps a computer printout of safety inspection reports on his desk in lower Manhattan: The frequency of these incidents is After death Smith proposed and the City Council last month Kamby Jeffery A I Work was halted at this construction site at 236 47th St last month after materials were found stored hazardously along the building's edge ms NEWS0AY SUNDAY AUGUST 9 1987 fioorsas materialbelhgstoredek)to the edge bfX tdmgTwpyiolatioanotices were issuedim SuxtheccidentMerUs has spent three weeks? wfthpte labor paioawhfeht believes werethedirect result of stress related? lost felinf -la Jher and has suffered orthodontic? and futerfoittent adieeatN Merila talking by butrma littleP I a construction site Any Marila has filed a multimill km-dollar lawsrtitp ''rifiattwesubamtmctors Developments owned hick is developing the Larry Bivins? 977 Eighth Aye:.