Company behind Hell’s Kitchen crane collapse tied to previous disasters

The company that owns the crane that caught fire and partially collapsed in Hell’s Kitchen Wednesday — injuring six people — was founded by a shady construction magnate and self-proclaimed “King of Cranes” whose machines were involved in two deadly incidents more than a decade ago.

The 45-story crane that went up in flames before tumbling at a job site at 510 Tenth Ave. around 7:30 a.m. is owned by New York City Crane & Equipment Corp., Department of Buildings officials said at a press conference.

The Queens-based company was founded and operated by the late James Lomma, a controversial, bombastic Staten Island native who dubbed himself the “King of Cranes.” He died in 2019.

Lomma’s company first made headlines in 2008, when two of its cranes collapsed and killed nine people in just two months.

The first incident took place at 303 East 51st street on March 15, just a few days after a caller told city officials that the 22-story crane lacked proper safety ties.

Six construction workers and one bystander in a nearby apartment were killed and 24 people were injured when the machine fell and hit a neighboring building before destroying part of the street below.

Five days after the tragedy, the inspector who had cleared the site to continue work after the complaint was found to have lied about examining the equipment, Curbed reported. Then-DOB commissioner Patricia Lancaster, however, quickly concluded that a proper inspection would not have prevented the collapse because the crane had moved position in the intervening days, the outlet noted.

On May 30, another New York City Crane & Equipment crane collapsed on East 91st Street, killing crane operator Donald Leo, 30, and worker Ramadan Kurtaj, 27. 

That rig was previously damaged by what the company said was a lightning strike in 2007, sources close to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told The Post one year later.

Lomma and New York City Crane were subsequently slapped with manslaughter and a slew of other criminal charges related to the deaths, with prosecutors linking the collapse to a cheaply-made bearing.

At the 2012 proceedings, investigators said that Lomma knowingly opted to repair the crane with a $20,000, 90-day fix job from the Chinese firm RTR Bearing, rather than investing in a safer, $120,000 option through Avon Bearings in Ohio.

Lomma was acquitted in a bench trial, prompting the victims’ families to decry the businessman’s behavior in the wake of their personal tragedy.

“He’s dancing on our son’s grave,” Kurtaj’s cousin, Zhevaire Sinanaj, told The Post at the time — accusing Lomma of sending taunting emails in the aftermath of the verdict.

In August 2015, a jury ordered Lomma to pay Leo and Kurtaj’s loved ones a record $96 million in damages after a 10-month civil trial.

A highlight of the trial was a standoff during which Lomma refused to give up his $4.6 million leather-seated Pilatus PC-12 turbo-prop, prompting the judge to order him to “sell the damn plane.”

In December that year, lawyers for the victims’ families exclusively told The Post that they believed Lomma was illegally moving his assets to his daughter’s company in order to avoid coughing up the payout.

When Lomma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for himself and three of his companies, including New York Crane, a few months later, he claimed his assets only totaled around $58 million.

At the time, he lived in a $1 million Station Island mansion and owned a $300,000 villa in the US Virgin Islands, The Post reported. 

“[Lomma] is extremely, extremely wealthy and yet the families have not seen a penny from him,” attorney Susan Karten, who represented Kurtaj’s family, scoffed in 2017.

That same year, an appeals panel upheld the jury’s verdict but reduced the damages to $35 million.

“Lomma placed profit over the safety of construction workers and the public, despite having multiple opportunities to change course,” the five-judge panel concluded.

In 2018, Lomma released an official reorganization plan that vowed to pay off the damages in addition to his other debtors, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Lomma died in 2019 at age 73. His obituary did not mention his past controversies, but emphasized his “humanitarian efforts” and “love of the ocean.”

New York City Crane & Equipment Corp. is currently operated by J.F. Lomma, Inc., records indicate. Frankie Signorelli is listed at the company’s COO on LinkedIn.

New York City Crane declined to comment on Wednesday.

With Post wires