[NYguy]

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012...truction-site/

Woman Injured By Truck at Manhattan Construction Site





September 20, 2012
By Eliot Brown

A woman was seriously injured by a construction truck Thursday afternoon next to a high-profile Midtown development site.

A truck doing work at 220 Central Park South–a building under demolition that’s the subject of a contested fight between two of the city’s most powerful developers–struck a pedestrian on 58th Street, pinning her under the truck, a New York Fire Department spokesman said. The fire department removed the woman, who was taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital, the spokesman said. Her name wasn’t released, and the investigation is ongoing.

The property, which runs through the full block between 58th Street and Central Park South, is considered one of the best development sites in the city given its park-side location and has been closely watched in the real estate industry.

Its owner, Vornado Realty Trust, recently began demolishing the former rental apartment building to make way for a luxury apartment tower. That ignited a fight with a rival developer, Extell Development, which controls the rights to the parking garage in the building’s basement and has resisted offers from Vornado to leave the property.

Extell, in turn, owns a neighboring property and also has been planning a tower of its own a block to the south. The developer likely is concerned about how the Vornado tower may affect views of the park from its own sites.