Things You Don’t Want In Your Personnel File Include . . .

. . . a note saying you lied about inspecting something you were supposed to inspect but didn’t and then that thing you were supposed to inspect ended up killing several people:

A city inspector, charged with ensuring the safety of the giant crane whose catastrophic collapse killed seven people last Saturday, admitted that he lied about checking the equipment, authorities said yesterday.

Edward J. Marquette, 46, of Hell’s Kitchen, was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday on counts of falsifying business records and filing a false instrument that could bring a four-year prison term.

. . .

Marquette was released without bail.

He was assigned to inspect the crane at 303 E. 51st St. on March 4 after a retired building contractor reported to 311 the crane did not appear to be properly attached to the building.

“Caller states crane does not appear to be braced to the building. There are only tie-backs on five or six floor[s], but upper part which is 100 feet up is unsecured,” a Buildings Department complaint form said.

Marquette filed a report stating he inspected the crane and found it safe.

“No violation warranted for complaint at time of inspection,” he reported.

There Are Only Two Certainties In Real Estate: Eminent Domain And The Economy

Well, it’s a good thing they rushed to tear down all those people’s homes:

The slowing economy, weighed down by a widening credit crisis, is likely to delay the signature office tower and three residential buildings at the heart of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the developer said.

“It may hold up the office building,” the developer, Bruce C. Ratner, said in a recent interview. “And the bond market may slow the pace of the residential buildings.”

Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, did not specify the kinds of delays possible, but suggested that construction could be put off for years. His comments are his first public indication that the darkening economy has slowed the ambitious project, spanning 22 acres at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.

The developer did say he was confident about starting construction on a $950 million basketball arena for the Nets by the end of the year. The arena was to be surrounded by the office tower, known as Miss Brooklyn, and three residential buildings in the first phase of the project.

But Mr. Ratner has yet to secure an anchor tenant for the Miss Brooklyn building, and now plans to phase in the residential buildings slowly.

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

Some Things Just Must Be Remembered

The BQE is historic, but not in a good way:

A state agency has lifted a puzzling bureaucratic roadblock that significantly delayed a long-awaited plan to replace the traffic-choked Kosciuszko Bridge.

The Historic Preservation Office last week abandoned its push to preserve the deteriorating bridge, thus ending an inter-agency squabble that delayed final approval of the project by at least six months, the Daily News confirmed Wednesday.

The state Transportation Department had originally anticipated receiving federal authorization for the roughly $700 million project — the final regulatory hurdle — by the end of last year.

However, as The News first reported last month, the DOT was forced to shelve the project last November after Historic Preservation objected to final design plans that call for the Kosciuszko to be demolished and replaced by two new parallel bridges.

Preservation officials deemed the aging span “a significant and unusual variation of the Warren truss type bridge” and argued that a rehab was “a prudent and feasible alternative to demolition,” according to a letter obtained by The News.

In response, DOT officials presented Historic Preservation with a report justifying replacement of the 1939 bridge, which carries the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway over Newtown Creek between Maspeth, Queens, and Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

The report addressed safety concerns, such as its steep grade and substandard merging lanes — factors responsible for bottlenecked traffic and a high accident rate, according to the DOT.

In a written response on Friday, Historic Preservation officials threw in the towel.

“We concur that there are no prudent and feasible alternatives to the demolition of this historic bridge,” an official wrote. “We find that correction of many of the substandard safety features would significantly alter character-defining features of the bridge.”

Who’s The Boss Here, Them Or Us?

How to change a lightbulb on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge:

. . . Two carry up a 50-pound red beacon light fixture, while the third distracts a peregrine falcon with a mean streak, lest it rip them all to pieces with its sharp talons.

By the way, all this requires sidestepping piles of pigeon heads, as the predatory falcons seem to have a habit of eating everything but.

. . .

The electricians usually make about 20 bulb-changing trips a year among the beacon lights, red “obstruction lights” on the cables and the bridge’s 340-plus decorative white “necklace lights.”

But burned-out bulbs have been a less-frequent occurrence these days, with the Verrazano the first MTA bridge to break in new ultra-efficient LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs.

With a life span of between five and 11 years, the new bulbs, which so far have replaced those in only the required red lights, already have decreased energy consumption by 90 percent, according to Maintenance Superintendent Charles Passarella.

With any luck, the new bulbs will mean fewer emergency trips to the top, and fewer dangerous run-ins with the falcon, which is particularly aggressive during mating season.

“Once they lay eggs around June, we can’t go up,” [MTA senior bridge and tunnel maintainer Kenny] Dybing said. “We don’t want to interfere with the process.”

Before the eggs hatch around early July, the male falcon is usually fairly well-mannered, but “the mother gets very protective,” Dybing said.

If a critical red light goes out during that window of time, the men go up with Chris Nadareski, a biologist and falcon expert from the city Department of Environmental Protection. Nadareski, who wears protective clothing, and is well-versed in falcon behavior, is able to distract the mother while the lights are changed, Dybing said.

“The same pair returns every year to breed,” Passarella said. The birds are banded so biologists can track their movements. Babies hatched on the Verrazano have been found far up the Hudson River.

Location Scout: Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

When You Put It That Way, One In 250 Doesn’t Sound Rare At All . . .

Time was, New Yorkers only concerned themselves with jumbo jets flying into buildings. Now they worry about cranes, as well:

New York has always been a city of construction cranes: They are the steel crutches of the skyline, forever pulling it upward. But when one of them collapsed on the East Side on Saturday — killing at least four people, demolishing a building and damaging at least five others — the disaster exposed the often-uneasy relationship cranes have had with the New Yorkers who walk below them.

Officials said that about 250 cranes were now in operation in the five boroughs, a telling sign of the city’s building boom. Construction cranes are towering behemoths, signposts of the city’s prosperity that dominate the skyline for months but often go unnoticed.

Yet on Sunday, those who lived, worked or happened to be walking near the cranes looked upward with anxiety, their nerves rattled by Saturday’s collapse.

A gas station cashier who works below a crane at West 24th Street and 10th Avenue said he trusted God to protect him. A neighbor who lives across the street, Ana Gonçalves, puts her faith in the builders and hopes they know what they are doing. Victor Simpkins, another neighbor, has watched the crane for weeks, but now he looks up at it with a new suspicion.

“If that thing would fall over, my building would be toast,” said Mr. Simpkins, 53, a designer and filmmaker.

. . .

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg acknowledged the danger of high-rise construction, but said residents near cranes were generally safe. “Do I think that you should worry if there’s a crane across the street?” the mayor said at a news conference on Sunday. “No. This is such a rare thing that I don’t think we should worry about it.”

But as cranes have proliferated, so, too, have accidents associated with them. Last year, there were eight crane-related “accidents,” up from five in 2006; and 21 crane-related “incidents,” up from 14. As the city’s Department of Buildings defines them, “accidents” involve fatalities or injuries, and “incidents” do not.

The collapse of the 205-foot crane on Saturday — described by city and union officials as one of the worst crane accidents in memory — gave rise to a grim New York City parlor game, one that pedestrians have doubtlessly played in the back of their minds over the years: If that crane fell, where would it hit?

“We thought about it, and we think if it falls, it will probably fall into the park or bounce off that clock tower,” said Jarrod Shandley, 25, who lives with two roommates in a penthouse that looks out onto a crane at East 23rd Street and Madison Avenue.

. . .

Some New Yorkers showed no fear of cranes. Mr. Shandley, who lives in the penthouse, said crane anxiety after Saturday’s collapse was “an irrational fear.” Mr. Shandley, who works for a financial research company, added, “I don’t think you should be any more worried about a crane than crossing the street and getting hit by a cab.”