Here's the latest
• Stable for now: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said no additional movement has been observed at the Midtown Manhattan high-rise that was evacuated yesterday after structural columns buckled. Temporary shoring and beams have been installed on several floors to further stabilize the building, with more expected to be added today, the mayor said.
• Faulty columns: The developer behind the skyscraper told CNN faulty column supports carrying too much weight were to blame, adding they will determine the exact reason they bent “in due time.” Four buildings in the area remain under evacuation orders.
• About the construction project: The building, located on East 42nd Street, is the former headquarters for Pfizer and is being converted into apartments. The developer intends to rebuild the damaged section and still finish the project on time.
Buckling high-rise a rarity among increasingly common residential conversions, experts say
The structural failure of a Midtown Manhattan high-rise being converted into apartments is a “one-off” and shouldn’t deter future repurposing projects aimed at addressing housing shortages, some engineering and building experts say.
“The most important thing is no one got hurt here, no loss of life,” said Carlo Scissura, president and chief executive officer at the New York Building Congress, a building and construction trade organization. “The authorities are shoring up the building, they’re figuring out what went wrong … but what we cannot do is say that because this happened, it should affect residential conversions in general.”
Kemal Celik, associate professor of civil and urban engineering at New York University in Abu Dhabi, told CNN that this project was “unusually ambitious” in adding 11 new floors atop a 60-year-old structure.
“The lesson is that when a project changes what a building has to carry, it needs the deepest possible level of structural review — before construction, not during it,” she said. “The message isn’t that conversions are dangerous — it’s that old buildings deserve new questions before you ask them to carry new loads.”
The latest on the damaged NYC skyscraper
Work continues to shore up a Midtown Manhattan high-rise, as the developer behind the building says faulty column supports carrying too much weight were to blame for the buckling.
Here’s what else you should know:
- There has been no additional movement observed at high-rise, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said this morning. Shoring and beams have been installed on several floors of the building to help stabilize it, with more expected to be added today, he added. Converting office space into homes is “part of our answer to the housing crisis,” Mamdani said, but this was a “breakdown in that process.”
- The process of shoring up a building is “very dangerous” but “precautions are taken to mitigate the risks,” structural engineer Matthew Roblez told CNN. Crews work closely with structural engineers to find the right locations to add support or strength, he said. Workers are using emergency jacks and adding new steel supports to help stabilize the building, the head of the city’s Department of Buildings said.
- Steamfitter union workers first spotted the buckled beams inside the 21st floor of the high-rise, spokesperson Will Thomas told CNN. “It was our guys who helped get everyone out of there,” he said.
- Multiple streets near the high-rise have reopened, according to New York City Emergency Management. Police officers will remain at the scene to help people access buildings in restricted areas, the department said.
- A third-party forensic evaluation has been ordered in the investigation, the city’s Department of Buildings said. The investigation will include reviews of construction documents, any video or photo evidence and interviews with witnesses.
Passersby and giant inflatable rats mingle at closed-off streets near structural incident
The corner of East 43rd Street and Second Avenue remained busy with traffic and pedestrians despite street closures near the building site after officials reduced the size of the “frozen zone” surrounding the Midtown Manhattan high-rise.
A handful of small businesses, including a local bagel shop, a nail salon and a Dunkin’, half a block away from the building, remained closed.
Officials with the Department of Buildings could be seen walking past the barricades and police kept pedestrians away as they walked toward the building.
A handful of union workers also gathered near the site, protesting the developer for what they said is a lack of union labor on site.
By 12:30 p.m., the union workers had set up two giant inflatable rats framing the entrance to the barricades. The blow-up figures are known as “Scabby the Rat” — a symbol unions frequently use to protest companies that use non-union labor.
Nathan Berman, founder and managing principal of the developer, MetroLoft, told CNN they “do in fact have some union contractors in the building.”
“Whatever it is that they’re complaining about is a little bit self-serving, you know,” Berman said. “Many of these unions never show up to bid. They show up with a rat, and that tells you everything.”
Passersby stopped by throughout the day, gazing skyward, pointing out the building and trying to spot the damaged beams.
This post has been updated to add comments from Nathan Berman.
It's time developer "wakes up and changes the way they do business," union rep says
Signs and advertising screens reading “Shame on MetroLoft” and “crime scene” have gone up near the site of the under-construction Midtown Manhattan building that was evacuated Tuesday after structural columns buckled. The cause of the structural issue is under investigation.
The message to the developer is a call for “change of practices,” said Michael Piccirillo, director of area standards for the New York City District Council of Carpenters.
“It’s time MetroLoft wakes up and changes the way they do business,” Piccirillo told CNN.
Piccirillo argued that non-union labor on the project makes it less effective in terms of job site safety. “If they’re cutting corners on labor, they could possibly be cutting corners on everything else,” he alleged.
“Things like this shouldn’t happen, right? It just shouldn’t,” he said. “We’re in the most populous area, right, of New York City, and here you are — you get a building that could potentially have collapsed and really injured people. It’s a shame that this actually goes on.”
Nathan Berman, founder and managing principal of MetroLoft, told CNN they “do in fact have some union contractors in the building.”
Any criticisms of non-union workers making it unsafe were “disingenuous,” he said.
“We employ very good contractors that have done dozens and dozens of these jobs successfully,” Berman said. “To put in doubt their quality of work is … a little bit self-serving, and frankly unfair.”
This post has been updated to add Nathan Berman’s comments.
Several road closures lifted near damaged high-rise
Multiple street closures near the high-rise that suffered structural damage Tuesday have reopened, according to New York City Emergency Management in a post on X.
Streets including 42nd Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenue; 2nd Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Street; and 3rd Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Street are now open to the public.
NYPD officers will remain on scene to help people access buildings in restricted areas, the city’s emergency management department said.
CNN visualizes the buckling at an NYC high-rise
Images show the buckling of the New York high-rise and how teams are working to stabilize the building.
Read the full story and see CNN’s visualization here.
Developer addresses cause of damage and says he is "grateful" for city's response
The developer behind the Midtown Manhattan skyscraper that suffered structural damage on Tuesday said faulty column supports carrying too much weight were to blame and the building has now been stabilized.
Nathan Berman, founder and managing principal of MetroLoft, told CNN his company added roughly 18,000 square feet to 15 upper floors, and the additional load caused two columns to bend. Those floors then shifted and sagged, some as much as four inches, he said.
The columns bent “essentially from not having been properly reinforced or having been missed in the reinforcement process.” Berman said they will determine the exact reason “in due time.”
A “full investigation” into the structural failure at the former Pfizer building will help determine how the failure happened, what led to it and how similar incidents can be avoided in the future, the New York City Department of Buildings said.
The investigation will include reviews of construction documents, interviews with witnesses and a review of any available video and photo evidence from the site, among other things.
Crews have been shoring up the affected floors since Tuesday night, and are expected to finish by Thursday morning, Berman said. The columns and beams in the affected area will be fully replaced once the Buildings Department clears them to do so, he said.
“We are building a premium product and we don’t want any part of this product … not to be at its best,” Berman said. “We do not want to fix something. We’d like to replace it and make it new.”
As for calling it “a typical construction mishap” after the buckling occurred on Tuesday, Berman said he is not trivializing what happened but it shouldn’t be blown out of proportion.
“What I basically meant to say, maybe not so artfully, is that construction mishaps happen,” Berman said. “This was one such mishap that is unfortunate, but this is not so completely unique in the history of construction that it warrants this kind of scrutiny.”
In a statement earlier Wednesday, MetroLoft said the building was never in danger of collapse. Still, Berman said he was “very pleased and grateful” the city took the steps it did to ensure everyone’s safety.
Union workers first spotted buckled beams inside high-rise, spokesperson says
Steamfitter union workers first spotted the buckled beams inside the 21st floor of the Midtown Manhattan high-rise, a spokesperson with the Steamfitters Local 638 union in New York City told CNN Wednesday.
“It was our guys who helped get everyone out of there,” Will Thomas, a spokesperson for the union, told CNN. “Thanks to the actions of an eagle-eyed Local 638 apprentice and shop steward, the sagging floors and failing beam supports were discovered and construction crews were able to evacuate in a timely fashion.”
While the vast majority of construction workers at the site are not unionized, Thomas said there were also members of the Local One Elevator Constructors union on site.
Since the incident unfolded on Tuesday, union workers have raised concerns about the lack of unionized labor on the project, suggesting a lack of proper training, oversight and adequate staffing may have contributed to the structural issues.
Nathan Berman, founder and managing principal of MetroLoft, told CNN any criticisms of non-union workers making it unsafe were “disingenuous.”
This post has been updated with a comment from Nathan Berman.
Shoring up buildings is “very common in large, dense cities,” engineer says
The ongoing task of shoring up weakened parts of the Manhattan high-rise is inherently risky. “But large-scale shoring operations happen regularly in NYC given the density and age of buildings,” a structural engineer said.
In fact, shoring up or stabilizing buildings “is very common in large, dense cities with an older building age,” said Chris Cerino, past president of the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations and the Structural Engineers Association of New York.
But the buckled columns in the Midtown building present a “unique” and “very challenging” situation, he told CNN in an email.
“Additional vertical elements are needed to transfer the weight in the compromised areas to the foundation,” Cerino said. “They will likely be installing shoring posts, which are small columns, for the entire height of the building at and below the failure zone.”
Temporary shoring and columns installed at NYC high-rise
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said no additional movement has been observed at the Midtown Manhattan high-rise that was evacuated Tuesday after structural columns buckled, telling reporters that temporary shoring and beams have been installed on several floors to further stabilize the building, with more expected to be added today. He also talked about evacuations that are still in effect.
Thousands of buildings get renovated, but it’s “VERY unusual to have beams buckle”
Despite widespread shock over the Manhattan high-rise, “People shouldn’t come away thinking that renovating older buildings is inherently dangerous,” structural engineer Matthew Roblez said.
“We successfully renovate thousands of buildings every year. When something this unusual happens, it’s important not to assume every renovation carries the same risk.”
The need to shore up or stabilize a building during remodeling is quite common — though it’s “VERY unusual to have beams buckle,” Roblez told CNN in an email.
But the mishap in Manhattan “isn’t evidence that building renovations are unsafe,” he said. “It’s evidence that our safety protocols worked exactly as intended. The building was evacuated, engineers are stabilizing it, and now they’ll methodically determine why this rare event occurred.”
What are shoring jacks, the props used to support the buckling high-rise
Photos shared Wednesday afternoon by the New York City Department of Buildings show shoring jacks and box steel columns installed next to the high-rise building’s buckled columns.
Shoring jacks are heavy-duty adjustable props used to temporarily support vertical structures such as ceilings, concrete slabs and walls.
They are typically used during construction to maintain stability. The emergency jacks will provide stabilizing support to the damaged structure.
But the beams supporting the shoring jacks may not be able to bear the weight of the entire building, and other columns could become overloaded. To fully stabilize the structure, engineers may need to extend shoring 20 floors down to the foundation, as well as to the sagging floors above.
More than 100 additional shoring jacks have been delivered to the site and are waiting to be installed.
“It is very dangerous” to shore up a high-rise building, engineer says
As workers continue shoring up floors in the Manhattan high-rise, their job is inherently risky, a structural engineer says.
“It is very dangerous, but precautions are taken to mitigate the risks,” engineer Matthew Roblez said.
Crews work hand in hand with structural engineers to find the right locations to add support or strength, he said.
“The best part about this particular case is they were already doing renovations. So the structural engineers involved are already very familiar with the building and the load paths,” Roblez said.
Workers are using emergency jacks and adding new steel supports to help stabilize the building, the head of the city’s Department of Buildings said.
Third-party forensic evaluation ordered in high-rise investigation
A “full investigation” into the structural failure at the former Pfizer building will help determine how the failure happened, what led to it and how similar incidents can be avoided in the future, the New York City Department of Buildings said.
The investigation will include reviews of construction documents, interviews with witnesses and a review of any available video and photo evidence from the site, among other things.
The department also has required the building’s owner to hire a third-party engineer to conduct a forensic evaluation — a formal investigation to determine the cause of the structural failure.
“Contractors and site safety professionals have a legal responsibility to ensure that they maintain a safe working environment on their construction sites, for the safety of their workers and for the general public,” the DOB said.
Any actions against those responsible for the structural failure are pending the results of the ongoing investigation, the DOB added.
Steel columns for additional structural shoring to be delivered today
All emergency shoring work on the former Pfizer building is being supervised by the building owner’s engineer and a third-party engineering firm not previously involved with the work on the building, the New York City Department of Buildings said Wednesday.
The full emergency plan following the incident involves structural reinforcement, including structural steel shoring columns and light-duty shoring posts, from the 9th floor to the roof of the building, the DOB said.
A delivery of additional structural steel shoring columns is expected later Wednesday afternoon. Those steel columns will replace light-duty shoring posts on all floors, according to the DOB.
“The light-duty posts were installed first because this can be done quickly as an emergency measure,” the DOB explained. “The steel columns take longer to be delivered and installed, but are a more long-term solution.”
“I do believe a partial demolition will be required,” structural engineer says
Based on images of the Manhattan high-rise, a structural engineer said he believes construction on the building might continue one day — but part of the building would likely need to be demolished.
“Construction will be able to resume once the building is secured and the failed area (is) remediated to restore fully structural integrity,” said Chris Cerino, past president of the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations and the Structural Engineers Association of New York.
For that to happen, “I do believe a partial demolition will be required,” he said.
Images show progress in stabilization of Manhattan high-rise
The New York City Department of Buildings has shared new images from inside the Manhattan high-rise showing the “significant progress” that crews have made in the stabilization of the building.
“DOB inspectors and engineers will remain on site to monitor the progress of work and continue their investigation into the structural failure,” the department said in a post on X.
“All emergency shoring work is being installed under the direct supervision of the owner’s engineer and a third-party engineering firm hired by the owner that has not been involved with the work before the incident,” the post said.
No part of the building was ever at risk of collapse, developer MetroLoft says
The developer of the Midtown Manhattan high-rise that was evacuated Tuesday after structural columns buckled is insisting “at no time was the building, or any portion of it, at risk of collapse.”
“Reports of risk of a collapse were and are inaccurate,” a statement from MetroLoft said Wednesday.
The statement contrasts with public assessments from the FDNY and city officials on Tuesday, who described the building as “unstable,” established a formal “collapse zone” around it, and said they had monitored continued movement of the structure.
The company said its team worked through the night stabilizing the affected columns, rendering the structure stable.
“We have identified the issue and developed a clear plan to fix it,” MetroLoft said. “We are in the process of addressing the issue and will fully rebuild this portion of the building in tandem with ongoing construction.”
The construction project remains on schedule, according to the developer, who added that work to rebuild the buckled sections would not delay delivery of the building itself. “This is a localized situation affecting less than 30 apartments out of over 1,600,” the company said.
Mamdani: Office-to-home conversion is key, but this was “a breakdown in that process”
Converting office space into homes is “part of our answer to the housing crisis,” New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. But “we have to do so safely and in a way that is fully accountable.”
“As soon as we answer the emergency questions around safety in this moment, we are going to be conducting a full investigation as to how we got to this point,” he said.
“Because this is not a necessary consequence of an office-to-residential conversion. This, however, is clearly a breakdown in that process.”
Four buildings remain under full evacuation orders
Officials have reduced the size of the “frozen zone” surrounding the Midtown Manhattan high-rise, but four buildings remain under full evacuation orders, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.
Part of another building – a ground-floor restaurant – also remains under an evacuation order, he said.
