56 Leonard Street is an 821-foot-tall, 57-story skyscraper on Leonard Street in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan. The building was completed in 2017 and it currently stands as the tallest structure in Tribeca. The building was developed by Alexico Group and designed by the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron who describes the structure as “houses in the sky.”
R&R Scaffolding, Ltd was selected to design, manufacture, and install a fixed-in-place, self-stable, single-jib Building Maintenance Unit (BMU) on the roof of the building. The 95,000 lb BMU features a telescopic mast, which raises the boom to allow the platform to clear obstacles on the roof and then lowers it into its parking position while not in use to reduce its visibility. A three-section telescopic boom allows the machine to achieve a maximum outreach of approximately 80 feet. A mobile counterweight is used to stabilize the machine while in the innermost and outermost working positions. To achieve access to the underside of the cantilevered floor slabs, a telescopic approach system is used. This custom-designed system can reach inward nearly 15 feet. This BMU can reach the entire façade of this complex building.
