Whitney and I were on our way out the door this afternoon when we heard the most god awful, intense, heart-stopping noise we’ve ever heard.

I had heard construction workers on and off all morning clanging around (knowing the street over had a high-rise in the works), but the second I heard the CRASH, I knew it was the site on 51st, almost directly behind us. We heard screams and sirens almost seconds after the noise and ran outside our building to get a better look.

The rest of the afternoon was CHAOS. The avenue was filled with smoke, and hundreds of firefighters, ambulances and police officers shooing people off the sidewalks of 2nd. We stood around for a while to get a better idea of what happened, and picked up pieces of people’s choppy accounts. We watched bloody-faced men being carried away in stretchers. We wondered how many people had been injured. Or worse. And we wondered about the stability of our neighborhood…

Four have already been pronounced dead, and dozens critically injured. Mayor Bloomberg just spoke (a 1/2 block down the street) and gave details of the tragedy. He explained that a lot of questions are still unanswered and that this is now a rescue mission - there’s no telling how many others are buried in the rubble.

We decided it was best to get out of the mess, so Whit and I picked up some lunch and headed to Central Park, even though we were still uneasy about the situation. Around 5, we headed back home and weren’t even allowed to access our street - it was barricaded and lined with police officers. !t took a while, but we finally made it past the yellow tape.

Just know that if the crane had fallen north instead of south, who knows where we’d be…

Pictures I snapped with my Blackberry are below.