A Manhattan high-rise that once served as Pfizer’s global headquarters is at risk of collapse on Tuesday after New York City officials said the tower continued to shift hours into a massive emergency response that triggered multiple evacuations.
City officials warned at a Tuesday afternoon press conference that conditions at the under-construction 38-story building at 235 East 42nd Street were “extremely serious” and “dangerous.”
“The concern is that since we have been on site in the early morning, we have seen continued shift of the structure,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.
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New York City Fire Department Chief John Esposito said that since the building is a steel-frame building, “it would not be a total collapse.”
“It would be more of a localized collapse, but that remains our concern, that it’s moving,” Esposito said.
Esposito added that a “collapse zone” has been set up.
FDNY officials said the department initially received a call about reports of falling bricks from the high-rise just before 8 a.m. ET.
After emergency responders arrived at the building, they found two support columns “buckled” on the 21st and 22nd floors, as well as “sagging” floors between the 21st and 26th floors.
The building was quickly evacuated, and other surrounding buildings were also evacuated as a precaution.
Jordan Tovin/Reuters
No injuries were reported, and Mamdani said that all construction workers who had been inside the building at 235 East 42nd Street were accounted for.
“Two structural columns have buckled, in addition to multiple cracks and sagging floors. The building remains unstable,” Mamdani said during the afternoon press conference.
Jordan Tovin/Reuters
Video footage circulating on social media appears to show structural steel beams bending inside the building.
New York City Department of Buildings commissioner Ahmed Tigani said crews will enter the building only after it’s deemed safe.
“Once we can determine that it’s safe to enter the building, we will then, in concert with the contractors, ownership, and with consultation with FDNY, be able to deploy plans to shore up that floor, and then continue to investigate further for any other weak points that need further help shoring,” Tigani said.
The former Pfizer headquarters is undergoing a major conversion from office space into a 1,600-unit residential rental development with a quarter of the units reserved for affordable housing.
Jordan Tovin/Reuters
The project, developed by the firm MetroLoft, is slated for completion early next year and is expected to include ground-floor retail space and 100,000 square feet of amenities.
Representatives for MetroLoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Business Insider.
MetroLoft says on its website that upon completion, the project will be New York City’s “largest office to residential conversion to date.”
