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Compromised structural beams on the 21st floor of a Manhattan construction site led to several evacuations and road closures on Tuesday, the New York City Department of Buildings confirmed to Construction Dive.
Two structural columns have warped, multiple cracks have formed and floors have caved in, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a press conference with other municipal officials.
“The building remains unstable. Since we arrived on the scene we have witnessed additional movement in one of the compromised columns,” Mamdani said.
Department of Buildings engineers are monitoring the structure, a commercial-to-residential office conversion project, with fire department drones, the mayor said. City crews will eventually attempt to shore up the columns if the ground is deemed stable and safe enough to do so.
Dangers and concerns
Video taken by workers at the job site shows supports collapsing at the project.
Joe DiPompeo, president of New Jersey civil engineering firm Structural Workshop, said he has driven past the East 42nd Street building on several occasions. After seeing the released videos of the interior, he called the failed beams “very concerning.” He also noticed that the metal studs for the interior walls were also warping.
“The only thing that would really make them stick, because they’re not load-bearing, is if the top floor comes down and loads them. I suspect the top floor came down when the main columns bolted and twisted the studs, which is not a good thing,” DiPompeo told Construction Dive.
Also the 2020-2021 past president of the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, DiPompeo posited that the support columns likely failed first.
A number of factors could have caused the failure, he added.
For example, stacking building materials in an area not designed for a heavy load, or if a piece of equipment deviated from the design plans and cut into a structural support, perhaps for electrical or plumbing work.
Fixing this problem is a major task.
“The best case scenario is that you get it and then you’ve addressed the problem temporarily,” DiPompeo said. “But if the top floor dropped a foot or two, which seems like what would have happened with the amount of movement and the columns and studs, the first 10 floors of this building are now crooked.”
DiPompeo said he had a hard time imagining how the building could be safe enough to prop up the columns from the inside, but he considered that crews could work from a large crane from the outside of the building.
“If that floor gave way, you had 10 floors above 22,” DiPompeo said. “You can certainly see why they evacuated the building and the area and they take it as seriously as they do.”
Meanwhile, officials repeatedly said they planned to monitor and shore up the building for further investigation, but would prioritize keeping people safe.
“The way this building is built, it’s a steel frame building, so it wouldn’t be a total collapse, it would be more of a localized collapse,” New York Fire Department Chief John Esposito said during Tuesday’s news conference.
All construction workers were accounted for after the evacuation, Mamdani said.
Details of the project
The residential conversion, the former Pfizer headquarters, is being developed by Metro Loft with 235 GC listed as the general contractor, according to DOB documents shared with Construction Dive. Gensler is the project architect, and adaptive reuse firm Collaborative Construction Management lists the project on its website.
With an end planned for 2027, the reuse project represents the conversion from office to larger residential in New York City history, according to the Collaborative Construction Management website. The 1.3 million square foot structure would create 1,600 luxury apartments, according to Metro Loft plans.
The building has two main areas, New York DOB Commissioner Ahmed Tigani told reporters Tuesday: a 37-story section, as well as a 22-story section with an 11-story addition above, which has reached the top.
The DOB had previously responded multiple safety issues in the structure from May 2025, according to The City Reporter. The incidents ranged from falling debris to at least two worker injuries in November and December, according to The City Reporter.
Adaptive reuse in the Big Apple
Converting offices to apartments has been on the rise in the Big Apple since the COVID-19 pandemic sent more employees to work from home. As of the first quarter of 2024, the city had 44 completed, ongoing and potential conversions for a total of 15.2 million gross square feet, according to a memo from the city comptroller last year.
However, a structural concern like the East 42nd Street building is not unique to adaptive reuse projects, DiPompeo said. In fact, residential buildings often have more supports in a larger number of smaller rooms, meaning that going from residential to office would involve more structural adaptations than the other way around, he said.
CCM, Gensler and Metro Loft did not respond to Construction Dive’s request for comment by press time.
