Unpopular opinion: Those fancy new tower cranes at the Hudson Yards site are way overbuilt

I walked by that big job on 34th Street last week and watched a crew spend a whole shift just tweaking the jib alignment. My old Link-Belt from the 90s could have done the same lift in half the time. Anyone else think these modern rigs are getting too complicated for their own good?

3 comments

3 Comments

cole_flores441mo ago

I ran a 50 ton Grove for 15 years up in Albany before I retired, and that crane never needed a laptop to lift a beam. We had a level bubble and a good oiler, that was it. Watching those guys with laser sensors and computer readouts just to set a column seems like a lot of extra money for no real gain. My old rig had maybe fifty moving parts total, and I could have it ready to go in fifteen minutes flat. These new machines have more sensors than a space shuttle and they still break down twice as often. I get that safety rules are tighter now, but all this extra tech just adds more things to go wrong on a busy site.

felix4141mo ago

New cranes break more than they lift, simple as that.

martin.riley1mo ago

My 30 ton Link-Belt from 1998 never threw a code in its life, and I'd still take it over a new one any day, @felix414. All those blinking screens just give you more reasons to call the dealer instead of getting work done.