Investigators look into crane severely damaged by Sandy in Manhattan

Investigators are examining a construction crane collapse atop a $1.5 billion luxury high-rise in midtown Manhattan due to high winds during Hurricane Sandy.

The crane dangled precariously, causing some buildings, including 900 guests at the Parker Meridien hotel, to be evacuated as a precaution, and the streets below were cleared.

The nearly completed high-rise is known as One57 and is in one of the city's most desirable neighborhoods, near Carnegie Hall, Columbus Circle, and Central Park. The crane had been inspected, along with other city cranes, on Friday and was found to be ready for the weather.

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New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.