Manhattan high-rise to be stabilized after columns buckle, forcing evacuations

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said early Tuesday afternoon that the building remained unstable and was “an extremely serious situation.”

His office said later that a team had gone floor-by-floor and observed no additional movement of the damaged columns, giving on-site contractors the greenlight to move forward with emergency repairs.

The temporary measures are meant to stabilize the building and are expected to stretch into the coming days, impacting a busy corridor of midtown near the famed Grand Central train station that is a hub for metro area commuters and residents as well as tourists.

The building, which is the former headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, is located just down the street from New York City icons like the Chrysler Building. The gleaming glass-and-steel building is in the midst of being converted to luxury apartments.

Leila Bozorg, one of Mamdani’s deputy mayors, said it was “encouraging” the building did not appear to be shifting as officials went up into and past the damaged floors on their way to the 37th floor — the top floor — of the building.

From the street below, a badly bent structural column could be seen through a large glass window on the 21st floor. The fire department, which also posted images of the column, said they found multiple cracks and sagging floors.

Asked earlier in the day if there was concern of a collapse, Fire Chief John Esposito said the way the steel-framed building is constructed, “it would not be a total collapse, it would be more of a localized collapse.”

Still, nearby buildings and streets remained evacuated, including a school and the Israeli consulate just across the street. The building itself was empty at the time, other than for the construction workers.

Ramesh Yallappa, a tourist who was among those evacuated from a nearby hotel, said he initially feared it was a fire in the hotel when an immediate evacuation was ordered Tuesday morning.

“That moment, we were really really scared,” he said.

With more than 1,600 units, the developers say the project is the largest office-to-residential conversion in the city’s history. Gensler, the architectural firm leading the project, says on its website that it is transforming a pair of 1970s-era office buildings by adding more than a dozen stories and redesigning an adjoining tower.

Building department records show the project has been fined by the city for several safety violations, including glass and metal falling off the building, along with an incident where a worker fell off a ladder.

Spokespersons for Gensler and MetroLoft, the project developer, didn’t return messages seeking comment. But in a statement to The New York Times, MetroLoft stressed that the building itself is not at risk of collapse and that no debris fell from the building.

The building commissioner said workers will need to add emergency beams and columns to stabilize the compromised ones.

“Our top priority right now,” the mayor said Tuesday morning, “is the safety of those who live in this area and the safety of those who work in this area.”

Ed Miller, an area resident, said he walks under the building’s scaffolding several times a day, but will find other routes home going forward.

“The building was pretty old,” said Miles Grant, who used to work at the building. “It definitely needed a lot of work to become ready for residential.”

This story has been updated to correct that city officials revised the building’s height to 37 stories, not 38.

Izaguirre reported from Lindenhurst, New York.