235 East 42nd Street Column Buckling

235 East 42nd Street Column Buckling · Chronopin

Two structural steel columns buckled on the morning of July 7, 2026 at 235 East 42nd Street, the former Pfizer headquarters in Midtown Manhattan being converted to apartments, with the first reports just before 8 a.m.^[2][3]
The failure was on the 21st floor and caused the floors above to sag, prompting the city to evacuate surrounding blocks for fear of catastrophic collapse; four nearby buildings stayed under evacuation orders and a fifth partly, with evacuated workers facing potentially weeks without office access^[2][3]
Officials said they were "confident" temporary shoring was stabilizing the building - emergency jacks followed by new steel supports, per Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani - after a fire chief raised concern about a possible "localized collapse" while saying total collapse was impossible; the DOB declared the building structurally sound that day once each floor was shored^[2][3]
The two accounts differ on the tower's size and the scope of the conversion: CNN describes renovating the 33-story tower at 235 East 42nd while adding 19 floors to the 10-story building at 219 East 42nd, with Gensler on the project and completion expected next year, while The Real Deal calls 235 East 42nd a 37-story tower and describes the work as expanding 10 stories above the collapsed columns and adding four floors to the original 33-story tower^[2][3]
Engineers interviewed by Gothamist said the columns did not appear to have the reinforcing plates called for in the plans: GACE Consulting Engineers had specified added steel plates along the length of the two columns to support the 15 residential floors above, turning the I-shaped columns into solid steel boxes^[2]
GACE Principal Engineer Chris Behan: "The reinforcement from the 19th floor to the top of the 21st floor, which would have significantly increased the columns' strength, was never installed... The structure was not reinforced as GACE's design required", with Chris Cerino of SEAoNY saying "It looked to me that it wasn't there" and Joe DiPompeo saying photos clearly do not show the boxed reinforcement in the drawings^[2]
The Department of Buildings had not determined a cause and declined to say whether the steel was installed, and it is unclear why the work was not done or why inspectors did not catch it^[2]
Developer Nathan Berman of MetroLoft called it "a typical construction mishap", blamed added weight and said "I don't know that a four-inch sag is a collapse", while also telling The Real Deal on the day that it was possible the columns weren't properly reinforced; the site had prior complaints and a 2025 worker-injury lawsuit, which was denied^[2][3]
The incident widened: the city sent building safety inspectors across five boroughs to review construction sites and New York City investigators opened a preliminary criminal inquiry of unclear scope and target^[2]
MetroLoft's project is described as the city's largest office-to-home conversion^[2]
The B1M's film "New York's Buckling Tower: What Happens Now?", published 2026-08-26, sets the incident against New York's office-to-residential conversions and One Wall Street, but its page gives no date, cause, casualty or damage figures of its own^[1]

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235 East 42nd Street Column Buckling

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One Wall Street Completes Largest NYC Office-to-Apartment Conversion

BQE Rebuild Pushed Back to a 2030 Start

Citicorp Center's Secret Structural Fix Wraps Up

Contractor Sues Over 161 Maiden Lane's Leaning Foundation

262 Fifth Avenue Rises Over the Empire State Building's Sightlines

American Copper Buildings Complete on Manhattan's East River

Study Finds Miami Skyscrapers Are Sinking

New York Harbor Storm Surge Plan

Chicago's Century and Consumers Buildings Saved From Demolition

Nakagin Capsule Tower Demolition Begins in Tokyo

Manhattan's 'Jailscraper' Delayed to 2032

One Vanderbilt ouvre à côté de Grand Central

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Références 3CONFIANCE 90 %

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