New York City officials were racing to stabilise a high-rise building in the heart of Manhattan after cracks developed in multiple columns and floors began to sag, leading to the evacuation of nearby office buildings and a school during the height of the morning rush.
Early Tuesday, the Fire Department of New York received reports that bricks were falling near the former headquarters of drugmaker Pfizer Inc. at 235 East 42nd Street. First responders and city building officials evacuated workers from the building and were observing the structure to assess how to make it safe for crews to enter and shore up the affected floors.
“The building remains unstable,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a news conference. “This is an extremely serious situation and I’m thankful to our first responders for quickly arriving at the site.”
Later, a team entered the structure and determined that contractors can move forward with the installation of temporary shoring to stabilise the building, according to city officials.
There had been no additional movement of the damaged columns, and officials continued to monitor the affected portion of the building. Additional stabilisation work will be done in the evening and in coming days, officials said.
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Earlier, pedestrian and vehicular traffic was closed between 40th and 45th Streets and First and Third Avenues as police, fire and building officials responded to the scene. Several buildings surrounding the compromised structure, which is near Grand Central Terminal, a major transit hub, were also evacuated.
As of Tuesday evening, workers from the buildings department and FDNY were going building-by-building in the surrounding area to determine any changes to the street closures and whether people could go back to evacuated properties, a spokesman for the buildings department said.
The former Pfizer building is being converted into residential units. Metro Loft and David Werner Real Estate Investments are leading the project, which also includes the adjacent tower at 219 East 42nd Street.
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Fire Department Chief John Esposito said at the news conference with Mamdani that steel beams inside the building had started to bend and deflect from the weight of the structure. Esposito said that the way in which the building was constructed should prevent it from completely collapsing.
“It’s a steel frame building, so it would not be a total collapse, it would be more of a localised collapse,” Esposito said, “but it remains our concern that it’s moving.”
A Metro Loft spokesperson disputed reports that the building was near collapse. The Department of Buildings Commissioner said officials didn’t see falling debris when they arrived at the site.
“We’re thankful there were no injuries, and as the DOB clarified, no debris fell from the building,” Metro Loft said in a statement. “We want to confirm that the affected area is a small section of one of the two buildings on this site.”
The FDNY responded to a call at 7.57am and determined that two columns had buckled on the 21st floor. The New York Police Department received a separate 911 call at 8.11am reporting an unstable structure. Construction workers on the 21st floor told police they saw the columns beginning to buckle. All workers were safely evacuated.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a statement that her team is working with city officials.
The two buildings are expected to yield roughly 1,600 rental units, about 400 of them designated affordable housing, making it one of the largest office-to-residential conversions underway in the US.
The developers, through an entity called 235 East 42 Owner LLC, took full control of the site after buying out partner Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ remaining stake. Pfizer vacated the building in 2023 after relocating to a new headquarters at Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side.
The project is among several reshaping the office stock of Midtown Manhattan as developers convert aging office towers into apartments amid a broader US housing shortage. Gensler, the architecture firm on the job, has called the building’s mixed 1960s-era structural systems a uniquely difficult retrofit, with contractors working to pour a new floor every few days to try to meet the 2026 opening.
Photos: Bloomberg
