SEVERAL months ahead of the expected schedule, most of the cranes deployed to the site of the New York City World Trade Center after its collapse on 11 September 2001 have been moved off site.
The huge 907t-capacity Manitowoc 21000 Max-er, owned by All Erection and operated on site by New York Crane, spent just three months on site before being stripped down and taken away in the first week of January. In the following week New York Crane also moved out its Manitowoc 2250.
New York Crane, Bay Crane and AmQuip are the three crane companies working to contractors on the site (On site at Ground Zero Nov 01, pp34-49).
With most of the heavy and long reach lifting of the clear-up operation now completed – well ahead of most expectations – it is the demolition contractors and their excavators that are doing most of the work on site.
By mid January Bay Crane only had a 45 US ton rough terrain picker, supporting UK engineering company Cleveland Bridge which is reinforcing the slurry wall around the foundations.
AmQuip’s last crane left the site at the end of November.
New York Crane still has two big crawlers on site, says maintenance director Frank Signorelli. Its Link-Belt LS-278H is still at work on the demolition of the American Express Tower and the Winter Gardens; and it still has a Liebherr LR 1400, owned by Cranes Inc, on site. Smaller machines belonging to New York Crane that are still on site include a 30 US ton Link-Belt RT and a 40 US ton Favelle Favco telescopic crawler crane that is showing its value working in the debris down in the excavated hole where the twin towers once stood.
