New York City officials revealed new details Tuesday about the structural failure at Manhattan's largest office-to-residential conversion project, saying buckled structural columns were located directly beneath a 10-story expansion designed to widen the building's upper floors.
Photos released by the FDNY on Tuesday show a severely bent column on the 21st floor of the building at 235 East 42nd St. One photo appears to show the addition sagging from the side of the building. The damage is directly below a horizontal expansion spanning floors 23 through 32 that adds square footage to the former Pfizer headquarters.
Department of Buildings spokesperson David Maggiotto described the expansion as a "horizontal bump-out."
"For floors 23-32, the building is undergoing a horizontal bump-out to widen the structure at these floors," Maggiotto said. "The building has a tiered 'wedding cake' structure and is wider at the base than at the highest point."
The project also includes plans to add four new floors to the top of the building, which is being converted into roughly 1,600 apartments.
A 2024 zoning document depicting the project includes the planned four-story rooftop addition but does not depict the horizontal bump-out.
Maggiotto said investigators have not determined what caused the structural failure, and cautioned against drawing conclusions about whether the expansion played any role.
By Tuesday evening, Department of Buildings officials said engineers had completed an initial assessment, found no additional movement in the damaged columns and cleared contractors to begin installing temporary shoring. Officials said the stabilization work was expected to continue through the evening and into the coming days.
Officials also started allowing some nearby residents to return home while continuing to evaluate other evacuated buildings.
Fire officials said two structural columns buckled on the 21st floor, causing floors above to sag. The building was evacuated Tuesday morning after officials determined it was unstable. Engineers spent the day monitoring movement inside the structure.
By late afternoon, officials said they had detected no additional movement in the damaged columns and authorized contractors to begin installing temporary shoring.
Gensler, the architecture firm that designed the project, declined to comment and referred questions to the developer, MetroLoft.
In a written statement, MetroLoft Senior Managing Director Mitchell Wasser said the “safety of everyone at and surrounding the building is our number one priority.”
“We want to confirm that the affected area is a small section of one of the two buildings on this site,” Wasser said.
This is a developing story and has been updated with new details.
