Three injured by metal rain on Times Square

For theatre reporters, it was a scene eerily reminiscent of the media briefings that occurred during last year's extended closing of Times Square.

Last summer, a scaffolding collapse at Durst's Conde Nast Building at Four Times Square cost one woman her life and closed traffic and businesses in the middle of the world's busiest traffic center for a full month.

Last week, three women were injured when several light stanchions fell from atop the One Times Square Building.

"They came within inches of dying," New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said of the two survivors during a press conference behind police barricades near the accident site.

While Giuliani described the two survivors' injuries as "painful and frightening," he said they were not believed to be life threatening.

A New York City policewoman was a hero. The traffic officer with one year on the job, apparently saw some indication of the falling debris and shouted, "Move!" to the two civilian passersby. The mayor credited the officer with saving the other two women's lives.

During his briefing, the mayor pointed north to the aftermath of the accident, a white van parked just below the famous Times Square newswire sign. The van had been impaled clean through by one of the fallen pipes, and the long metal stanchion was still sticking through the vehicle's roof.

Next door, at Four Times Square, the site of last year's accident, construction continued apace. In fact, the noise of power tools was so loud two blocks away at the mayor's briefing, it was hard to hear a word he said.

At Four Times Square, there have been several accidents, including a fire on the west side of the structure a few weeks ago that was contained by construction personnel. On the street during the news conference, people appeared to associate accidents and street closures with Four Times Square, with several of them looking up at the building to see what had gone wrong.

One construction worker at Four Times Square, working near the base of the manhoist tower that fell last summer was asked, "Aren't you glad it wasn't you guys this time?" He replied, "Yeah, can you believe it?"

Jerome Hauer, New York City's commissioner for emergency management, was also on the scene with the mayor, along with dozens of police officers and firefighters who had blocked off a "hot zone" radiating one to two blocks in all directions from 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Asked whether the accident would prompt an official review of Times Square signage, Hauer told Back Stage, "Sure, we need to look at it and see how they're fastened."