“We’ve been monitoring the building for many hours and have not seen any movement," Ahmed Tigani, commissioner of the New York City Department of Buildings, said during a news conference Tuesday.
By nighttime, residents were allowed back into several of the seven buildings that were evacuated as a precaution.
The scene unfolded after columns were spotted buckling on Tuesday morning at the 1970s-era building, which is being converted into luxury apartments. Construction workers at the site and people in nearby buildings — including a school, diplomatic offices and several hotels — in the busy corridor of midtown were rushed out after firefighters were called there around 8 a.m. Mayor Zohran Mamdani described it as “an extremely serious situation.”
City officials going floor-by-floor later found no additional movement of the damaged columns, giving on-site contractors the greenlight to move forward with emergency repairs, his office said. On Tuesday evening, workers could be seen shoring up the damage inside the gleaming glass-and-steel high rise.
The building, which is the former headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, is located just down the street from New York City icons like the Chrysler Building and the United Nations headquarters.
Leila Bozorg, one of Mamdani’s deputy mayors, said it was “encouraging” the building did not appear to be shifting as officials went up into and past the damaged floors on their way to the 37th floor — the top floor — of the building.
From the street below, a badly bent structural column could be seen through a large glass window on the 21st floor. The fire department, which also posted images of the column, said they found multiple cracks and sagging floors as well.
Developer says new addition led to damage
With more than 1,600 units, the developers say the project is the largest office-to-residential conversion in the city’s history. Gensler, the architectural firm leading the project, says on its website that it is transforming a pair of 1970s-era office buildings by adding more than a dozen stories and redesigning an adjoining tower.
Building department records show the project has been fined by the city for several safety violations, including glass and metal falling off the building, along with an incident where a worker fell off a ladder.
Spokespersons for Gensler and MetroLoft, the project developer, didn’t return messages seeking comment.
But in a statement to The New York Times, MetroLoft stressed that the building itself is not at risk of collapse and that no debris fell from the building.
