New York City Department of Buildings launching new task force to identify risky job sites
Construction is one of the most dangerous jobs in New York City, and shoddy work puts crews, pedestrians and residents at risk.
CBS News New York's housing reporter Ali Bauman has an exclusive look at new ways the city is trying to crack down on unsafe job sites.
"You have to be right every day"
There are 1.1 million buildings in New York City, and 40,000 of those are under construction. Just 500 inspectors are checking the safety of all of them.
"Those aren't great, great odds," Department of Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo said.
Bauman went with the city's buildings department up to the 25th floor of an Upper East Side construction site to see how they inspect.
"We would walk around the entire perimeter to ensure the safety netting, the cable system is adequate, nothing can fall off the building," DOB Assistant Chief Inspector Mike Sokolowski said.
A new report from the DOB found construction site injuries citywide dropped 30% from 692 injuries in 2023 to 482 injuries in 2024. There were seven on-site deaths in 2024 – half the number compared to five years prior in 2019.
But they're not out of the woods; four workers have died on sites in the first four months of this year.
"Construction is one of the most, if not the most, dangerous jobs in New York City. Why is that?" Bauman asked.
"You have to be right every day," Oddo said. "The overwhelming majority of these incidents and these fatalities are preventable."
"Crappy owners find crappy contractors find crappy engineers"
After the Bronx building collapse of 2023, Oddo first told CBS News New York the engineer and contractor were to blame for what he called sloppy mistakes.
It inspired him to now launch a new task force to proactively identify job sites that pose a risk to its workers and eventual tenants.
"Crappy owners find crappy contractors find crappy engineers. We are now digging deeper to see exactly who else those crappy engineers work for," Oddo said. "And now all those players are getting a much closer review on all of their projects."
Take, for example, a crane that fell onto scaffolding in Midtown earlier this month.
"Some genius decides to use a mini crane to lift up another mini crane," Oddo said.
No one was hurt, and the work there is paused, but Oddo says it's now the entry point to a webbed investigation.
"Everyone involved in that project from the filing rep to the site safety manager to the sub contractor to the contractor to the developer is now under a close observation," he said.
With 60 new hires, the DOB hopes to do an additional 1,000 inspections by this time next year.
