Bloomberg says One57 street closure expected to end this weekend

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today that he expects individuals could return to their homes and offices near One57 this weekend. The block of West 57th Street was cleared following the collapse of a crane at the luxury tower on Monday, and city and private engineers are working to fully secure and, eventually, dismantle the suspended crane.

If the weather cooperates, the city expects to tie down the crane this weekend, “dramatically” reducing the size of the area that has been evacuated, Mayor Bloomberg said. However, it could take weeks to build another crane, and the mayor warned that some “sporadic closings” could take place as crews take down pieces of the One57 crane, he said.

“We are not going to jeopardize somebody’s life to make a deadline that you write,” Mayor Bloomberg told a reporter at a press conference this afternoon.

Mayor Bloomberg also said that city government buildings had fared better than many privately-owned properties in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Most of the 1,400 city buildings are on higher ground, he said, and “generally speaking, we had our generators not in the basement where they could get flooded.”

About 10 percent of the city’s 2,000 public school buildings were affected by the storm, said Dennis Walcott, chancellor of the New York City Department of Education.—Leigh Kamping-Carder