Two structural columns buckled on the 21st floor of the former Pfizer headquarters at 235 East 42nd Street in Manhattan on July 7, 2026, triggering visible cracking and sagging floors that prompted the immediate evacuation of the building and the surrounding block. The New York City Fire Department assisted with the evacuation while engineers moved in to assess the extent of the damage.
The tower is being converted by developer Metro Loft into roughly 1,600 luxury apartments across 1.3 million square feet, in what is being described as New York City’s largest office-to-residential conversion. General contractor 235 GC and architect Gensler are leading the project, which had targeted a 2027 completion date before the incident.
New York City Department of Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, under Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, mobilized emergency crews to the site, and shoring work on the affected 21st floor began the following day. The incident has renewed scrutiny of the project after safety concerns were first raised as far back as May 2025.
Structural engineering expert Joe DiPompeo, president of Structural Workshop, noted that large-scale office-to-residential conversions often require removing or altering load-bearing columns to accommodate new floor plans and unit layouts, a process that can introduce structural risk if not carefully sequenced, monitored, and shored throughout construction.
Source: Construction Dive
