MIDTOWN EAST, Manhattan (WABC) — The effort to stabilize an under-construction high-rise in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday is underway and expected to last “into the night,” keeping streets shut down and some buildings evacuated, officials said.
As of Tuesday evening, the prep work and staging have been completed and the installation of the temporary shoring is expected to begin soon, according to a city official.
Additionally, the official said residents in one of the evacuated buildings, 222 East 44th, have been told it is safe to return.
“We are continuing to evaluate and determine additional buildings that had been evacuated that can be repopulated,” the official said.
It all comes after a structural column buckled on the 21st floor, and additional structural issues were subsequently discovered, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.
“The building remains unstable,” Mamdani said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon, as there had been additional movement in one of the columns since city officials arrived. “This is an extremely serious situation.”
Lauren Glassberg and Crystal Cranmore have team coverage of the investigation.
The high-rise at 235 E. 42nd St., on the corner of East 42nd Street and Second Avenue, is a 1970s-era office building being converted into luxury apartments. The former global headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is located in a busy corridor about a block from the landmark Chrysler Building and between Grand Central Terminal and the United Nations headquarters.
Around 8 a.m., construction workers noticed cracks inside the building. The FDNY say the workers spotted structural support columns beginning to buckle on the 21st and 22nd floors and self-evacuated.
Officials say that caused the 21st to 26th floors of the 37-story building to start caving under the stress.
An image from inside the building shows a buckling column.
A nearby school with about 400 children was among the multiple evacuated buildings, Mamdani said at a press conference.
Fire Department Chief John Esposito added that the building continued to move hours later as emergency officials arrived on scene. Nearby streets were closed to people and vehicles.
Video shows the interior of an unstable building that sparked evacuations in Midtown on Tuesday.
Structural engineers are monitoring the building’s movement from the outside. In the afternoon, a team of six entered the building to assess the structure, and determined that contractors could begin shoring efforts to stabilize the building.
The team took the elevator to the 17th floor and then walked floor by floor. By 4:30 p.m., city officials said there had been no additional movement of the damaged columns.
The city is using highly sensitive equipment that can measure the smallest of movements.
Officials address concerns around a buckling building in Midtown.
Buckling columns and some bad “floor conditions” were spotted by buildings department inspectors.
Esposito said the steel columns have begun to “bend and deflect.”
If the building were to give way, it would “not be a total collapse, it would be more of a localized collapse,” Esposito added.
Every worker is accounted for, and no injuries have been reported, police say.
The building is topped out at 37 floors, and as more infrastructure was added to the floors above the 21st floor, the load-bearing columns became more stressed, officials say.
The building has not moved in several hours, Deputy Mayor for Housing and Development Leila Bozorg said around 4 p.m., a hopeful sign. However, she suggested this would not be a quick operation but a painstaking one to assure safety.
A frozen zone has been established in the area, closing streets off to both pedestrians and vehicular traffic.
Building evacuations and street closures
The FDNY said the following buildings have been evacuated:
Of the evacuated buildings, 231 East 43rd Street is the Hampton Inn Manhattan Grand Central, and guests have been evacuated from their rooms.
Additionally, 225 East 43rd Street is the Kennedy International School. The school was running a summer camp for 400 children in Pre-K through 5th grade this week.
The Israeli Consulate at 800 Second Avenue was also evacuated “as a precaution.”
The current frozen zone is set up from First and Third avenues between 40th and 45th Streets. Those streets are closed to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
Mamdani said those who live or work in the frozen zone will get updates.
Previous building violations
Before Tuesday, the unstable building received two dozen other complaints since last year, ranging from a worker blowing material off of the roof with a leaf blower, to a worker falling from a ladder that wasn’t on a flat surface, to a large item falling through five floors and almost hitting someone.
In almost all the of the cases, the building did not receive a formal violation because inspectors didn’t observe anything wrong when they got to the construction site.
Metro Loft, the developer of the conversion project, released a statement saying, “We are working closely with the Department of Buildings to understand the full scope of the situation. The safety of our workers and the public has always been, and remains, our top priority.”
The cause of the instability will be determined after the emergency trusses are in place, according to the buildings commissioner.
Dan Krauth has the details from the newsroom.
———-
* Get Eyewitness News Delivered
* More Manhattan news
* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts on the go
* Download our connected TV app
Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News
Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.
Copyright © 2026 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.
