It's a Bird, It's a Crane - No, Where is Superman?

Don't you just hate it when cranes collapse in front of your face? what's that you say? I'm making it sound like it happens all the time in this city? Well of course it does, silly! Two times in three months defines the word "often," just the way two makes a collection. I've been walking umbrella-in-hand, in case there are any future, surprise crane showers.

Let me tell you my side of the story:

On Friday morning, my brain was pretty sure it was taking my body to work.

It happened in the middle of my morning routine (goal = get out the door). My eyes were met with the tapering elbow that anchored the composition of the skyline -- a crane that rose into the air at a 23-story advantage, one that I stared at every single day for the past couple of months. By now I'd developed a mindless ritual of wondering just when that creepy crane would come to a crumble. Well this was cue for catastrophe; my imagination -- schooled in the comedy of the apocalypse -- was forced to reconsider the daily site as a terribly tragic, down-right need to RUN. It was hard to make the switch; the fireball of impact was exactly as it should be, and the cracking waves of dust that barreled all over my own street were so absurdly familiar--I had seen and heard them way too frequently in other forms, (i.e., September 11th), that I found myself in a cloud of evaporated frenzy, trying to sift through the different yellings, most beginning or interrupting with, "GET OUT OF THE BUILDING." Not that my instinct was any different, believe me, I grabbed my cats and went for a run.

After hours of headache and splitting hyper-vigilance, I was able to return to the wreck. Three days later, I sit here in a slush of safety, soundness, and symptoms of stupor.

Since the accident, the New York Times has reported that "the Manhattan district attorney's office has opened a criminal investigation into a fatal crane accident on the East Side, focusing on whether a part of the crane had been seriously damaged last year and then inappropriately put back into service, an official involved in the investigation said on Saturday." That's nice Mr. Official! Get on it! Before I do! The Department of Buildings has also released the full Complaint and Violation Summary for 335 East 91st Street, which shows us that the law of editing applies to much more than writing.

I want to thank the Written Word for allowing me to write instead of say what I'm about to relay because I am boiling below the belt. My question, is simply this: If the Stonehenge has existed for the past 5000 years without a stutter in stance, and if the theory is that with time comes development, especially in Urban areas of supposed decorum, how did something built HERE not even make it 3 months?? Do I seriously have to go into a whole rant on Tensile Strength? Post and lentil construction? THE MEANING OF GRAVITY? I mean, Einstein would pull his white-wired hair out!

The main point, and I do have one, is that this whole thing is a mere tragedy, and if it happens again, I have a bag full of threats.