NYC crane was being moved into 'secure position' when it collapsed, mayor says

One person was killed and three others were injured — two of them seriously — when a crane collapsed Friday morning in Lower Manhattan, smashing the roofs of parked cars, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio says.

Speaking at a news conference just before 11 a.m. ET, de Blasio said the person who died was sitting in a parked car on Worth Street near a construction site "literally as [workers] were lowering the crane to secure it" at about 7 a.m. ET.

The person killed was not associated with the construction work, the mayor said.

The crane, called a "crawler," was being lowered because winds were blowing at about 32 kilometres an hour and the manufacturer recommends securing it as winds approach 40 kilometres an hour, de Blasio said.

The crane landed across an intersection and stretched much of a block in the Tribeca neighbourhood, about 10 blocks north of the World Trade Center site. There was damage to the roof of a nearby building, and debris littered the street.

"It was right outside my window," said Robert Harold, who works at the Legal Aid Society. "It was a crashing sound. You could feel the vibration in the building."

Nearby buildings were evacuated. Officers told people arriving for work that they should go home.

Gas was turned off in the area as a precaution and crews were sweeping buildings in the affected area to check gas levels, de Blasio said.

"This is a very, very sad incident," the mayor said. "Thank God it was not worse."

Workers were directing people away from the area while they were adjusting the crane, de Blasio said, and credited their actions for preventing more casualties in the normally busy area of the city.

As a precaution, de Blasio said, officials were securing 376 other crawler cranes in the city on Friday.