By Joshua Runyan

NEW YORK, NY — As New York City’s government pieces together exactly what led to the fatal collapse of an Upper East Side crane, a neighborhood Jewish congregation termed the survival of members whose building was struck by the machine as nothing short of a miracle.

New York Residents Gather in Prayer Following Fatal Crane Collapse

By Joshua Runyan

NEW YORK, NY — As New York City’s government pieces together exactly what led to the fatal collapse of an Upper East Side crane, a neighborhood Jewish congregation termed the survival of members whose building was struck by the machine as nothing short of a miracle.

“Two of our families were miraculously saved,” said Rabbi Uriel Vigler, co-director of the Chabad Israel Center, which holds Shabbat services at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel caddy-corner to where a crane operator and another construction worker died in the Friday collapse. “The apartment of one woman’s daughter completely collapsed. Another parent was taking her child to preschool, when the crane missed them by a couple of feet.”

Vigler hosted a prayer vigil attended by 20 people half a block from the site Sunday night.

At the vigil, Rafi Aharon, 40, told The Associated Press that he left his apartment building at the corner of 91st Street and First Avenue with his 7-year-old son, Roy, less than a minute before part of the 200-foot crane smashed into the building. “It was very scary,” said Aharon.

For his part, Vigler said that the people gathered at the vigil “thanked G-d at the miracle of their survival. It could have been much worse.

Article continued (Chabad.org News)

4 Comments

  • So sad

    The guy who died on the crane was supposed to get married this past weekend

  • Feiga Nachmani

    Rabbi Uriel we are so proud of you, being there at the right time saying the right words. and above all Kidush Shem Lubavitch.

  • So sad

    Yeah, his fianc’e was a therapist or something who used to work in my Mom’s clinic. So all of her (the fianc’e’s) friends from my mom’s clinic were really upset on Friday.