Two fatal crane collapses and other brutal deaths haunted Manhattan during 2008. NY1’s Borough reporter Rebecca Spitz filed the following report.

The city's changing skyline does not come without consequences.

Manhattan’s first fatal crane collapse of 2008 occurred in March at East 51st Street. Seven people are killed when a 19-story crane comes crashing down.

"People were screaming and running away like at the World Trade Center,” said an onlooker.

Another collapse happened in the Upper East Side in May, when the top of the crane snapped off and crashed into a building across the street. Two construction workers are killed, including the crane operator.

The incidents shook up the Department of Buildings, as the commissioner was replaced and new safety rules were imposed.

Another grim death came in February, when an Upper East Side therapist was brutally murdered in her office. Kathryn Fahey was slashed 15 times with a meat cleaver, and her alleged killer was a man she had met at guitar camp years before.

Overall, crime in the borough declined in 2008, with 60 murders through the end of November compared with 65 in the same period past year. But rapes increased nearly 6 percent.

Numbers of civilian fire deaths were down in Manhattan, but the borough received a glaring reminder of how deadly fire can be.

Flames tore through an apartment in Chelsea in October, killing five members of the same family. The fire department said the apartment's smoke detector was unplugged and the backup battery was removed.

The so-called “preppie killer,” Robert Chambers, was sentenced to 19 years in prison, after pleading guilty to distributing cocaine from his apartment. He previously served 15 years for manslaughter in the "rough sex" death of Jennifer Levin in 1986.

A relatively new building drew some attention, but not necessarily for the right reason. Three climbers scaled the façade of the New York Times building on three separate occasions, which forced the news corporation to modify its exterior.

In other headline news, the sun set for one of the city's local papers. Unable to keep up with its operating expenses, the New York Sun folded after six years on news stands.

Actor Heath Ledger, after finishing his role as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," was found dead in his SoHo apartment in January. The cause was determined to be an accidental prescription drug overdose.

Finally, the year ended with the reopening of a couple of Manhattan landmarks.

After a two-year, $115 million makeover, the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum returned to Pier 86 on the West Side in time for Veterans Day.

And seven years after a fire destroyed much of The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Morningside Heights site was finally refurbished and rededicated in time for the holidays and the New Year.