
540 West 53rd Street, Manhattan. Image Credit: Google Maps
General contractor fined $25,000 for its failure to safeguard job site for construction workers. An employee of a sheet metal subcontractor was injured when he fell approximately 16 feet through a gap between the edge of a sidewalk shed and the face of a building located at 540 West 53rd Street in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen. Buildings cited GC Mega Contracting Group for its failure to safeguard “all persons and property” by not closing the gap with wood planks or equivalent material. Buildings produced photographs showing a cloth-like material covering the gap with a hole in it. Mega responded that the sidewalk shed did not have to conform to the requirements of the Building Code because, as photographs showed, the sidewalk underneath the sidewalk shed was closed to the public. (read more…)