NEW YORK (1010 WINS)  -- Firefighters pulled three more bodies from the rubble of a deadly crane accident Monday, bringing the total to seven.

SLIDESHOW: Images from the Scene

Six construction workers and a woman in town for St. Patrick's Day were killed Saturday when the 19-story crane broke away from an apartment tower under construction and toppled like a tree onto buildings as far as a block away.

1010 WINS AUDIO: Mona Rivera Reports

The woman was in her friend's second-floor apartment at the time of the accident, he said. Her friend was rescued, he said.

Workers raised their hard hats in salute as a van from the city medical examiner's office left the accident scene on Manhattan's East Side with the sixth victim's remains.

"It's hard,'' said carpenter Neville Evans. "I've heard about accidents and things of this nature but this one hit real close to home.''

VIDEO: Seventh Body Recovered from Crane Accident

City officials said the broken crane passed inspection Friday. At the time of the accident, the crane was being lengthened with a new section, a process known as "jumping," when it fell.

The city Department of Buildings said the crane toppled when a steel collar used to tie it to the side of the building under construction fell as workers attempted to install it, damaging a lower steel collar that supported the crane. With the elimination of that support, the counterweights at the top of the crane's tower caused it to fall, said Kate Lindquist, a Buildings Department spokeswoman.

First Person: John LaGreco Owned Bar in Bldg

The mayor and other city officials insisted that braces on the third and ninth floors appeared to have been adequate.

"This is adequate and appropriate for this kind of crane and this kind of height," the mayor said.

Pieces of the crane fell from 51st Street to 50th Street, demolishing a four-story brownstone and damaging five other buildings.

Tenants in 17 buildings on 50th, 51st streets and Second Avenue were ordered to vacate their apartments. The crane collapse cut off gas, electric, and water service to some buildings.

As recovery workers dug through the rubble Monday, the neighborhood just blocks from the U.N. struggled to return to normal. One lane of Second Avenue reopened to traffic, and stores and restaurants opened for business.

Debris was being cleared "delicately and meticulously" to prevent further damage, said Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster, who joined the Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials at the scene on Sunday.

1010 WINS VIDEO: NYC's Worst Construction Accident

At the Irish pubs that line Second Avenue near the accident scene, revelers wearing green face paint paused in their St. Patrick's Day bar-hopping to watch the recovery effort.

Michael Mullooley, the manager of Jameson's Pub, noted that one neighborhood bar -- Fubar on the ground floor of the destroyed brownstone -- was obliterated by the crane. He said that if the accident had happened on St. Patrick's Day, there would have been 200 people in Fubar. "If it happened today there would be carnage,'' he said.

The accident occurred in a mostly low-rise residential neighborhood that has recently undergone a construction boom, with tall condo towers sparking neighborhood concerns about the pace of development.

Speaking at the scene Sunday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said 24 people were injured, including 11 first responders.

The four workers recovered from the accident scene Saturday were identified as Wayne Bleidner, 51, of Pelham; Brad Cohen, 54, of Farmingdale; Anthony Mazza, 39; and Aaron Stephens, 45, of New York City, police said Sunday. 

The fifth worker, recovered Monday morning, was identified as Santino Gallone, 37, of Huntington Station. Police in the Miami suburb of Hialeah confirmed the woman found Monday was Odin Torres, 28, but New York officials had not yet identified the bodies of the woman and a sixth worker found later Monday.

About 250 cranes operate in the city on any given day, and Bloomberg said the accident shouldn't alarm New Yorkers living near high-rise construction sites. ``This is a very tragic but also a very rare occurrence,'' he said.

1010 WINS AUDIO: Sonia Rincon Reports

But many neighborhood residents said the crane that collapsed had never seemed safe.

Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster said the city would launch a safety sweep of the cranes in use around the city. ``We have no reason to believe that Saturday's tragic accident is indicative of a larger problem with similar equipment being used around the city,'' she said in statement Monday.

"I warned the Buildings Department on March 4 that it was not sufficiently braced against the building," said Bruce Silberblatt, a retired contractor and vice president of the Turtle Bay Neighborhood Association.

Retired ironworker Kerry Walker, who with his wife lived in the top-floor apartment of the four-story town house and left minutes before the collapse, had complained that the crane appeared dangerously unstable, his stepson said.

"He knows all about cranes and said this one had no braces, everything was too minimal," John Viscardi said. "He told one friend on the phone that 'if you don't hear from me, it's because the crane fell on my house.'"

The city had answered 38 complaints and issued slightly more than a dozen violations in the past 27 months to the construction site where a 43-story high-rise condominium was going up. None of the violations was related to the crane, Bloomberg said.

``There are no words to describe the level of devastation we feel today as a result of this tragic event,'' James Kennelly, the lead partner at East 51st Development Company, which owns the property, said in a news release. Read the full statement.

Photos by 1010 WINS' Aaron Gerberg and Chris Tobin

LISTEN NOW: Live Reports on the Rescue Effort

EAST SIDE TRAFFIC ALERT: 
E 51ST ST BETWEEN 3RD AVE AND 1ST AVE CLOSED DUE TO A CRANE COLLAPSE...++ AS A RESULT, TRAFFIC ON 2ND AVE BETWEEN 56TH & 53RD ST WILL GO CROSSTOWN ONLY...THEN 2ND AVE IS CLOSED BETWEEN 57TH ST & 48TH ST ++ EXPECT DELAYS & DIVERSIONS ON THE M15, M27 & M50 BUSES....SUBWAYS ARE UNAFFECTED.

Get More Manhattan News: NYC Boroughs & 'Burbs