Unstable highrise in New York City prompts evacuations

A New York City highrise remained unstable Tuesday after officials found that columns buckled and floors sagged while it was being converted to luxury apartments, forcing evacuations in and around the construction site.

The former headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is in a busy corridor just down the street from New York icons like the Chrysler Building and Grand Central train station. Drones and city officials were were busy checking out the building.

“This is a minute-by-minute assessment,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters near the scene.

Fire Chief John Esposito said the way the steel-framed building is constructed, “it would not be a total collapse; it would be more of a localized collapse.”

Firefighters had rushed to the area at around 8 a.m. after reports of falling bricks. However, the city’s building commissioner, Ahmed Tigani, said officials hadn’t found evidence that anything came off the building.

Later Tuesday, Leila Bozorg, one of Mamdani’s deputy mayors, told reporters that emergency workers were assessing the building “floor by floor” in order to “finalize a plan for how they’re going to reenforce the structure,” adding “it is encouraging.”

Still, nearby buildings and streets remained evacuated, including a school and the Israeli consulate just across the street.

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.

Buildings 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.

Spokespeople for Gensler and MetroLoft, the project developer, didn’t return messages from The Associated Press 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 it.

Fire officials said two columns appear to have buckled and there were multiple cracks and sagging floors between the 21st and 26th storeys. From the street below, a badly bent column could be seen through a large glass window. The fire department also posted images of the column.

First responders and city officials were working closely with the project engineer to develop plans to shore up the impacted flooring, Mamdani said. If it’s deemed to be secure, engineers will enter and begin making repairs.

The building commissioner said workers will need to add emergency beams and columns to stabilize the compromised ones.

“Our top priority right now,” the mayor said Tuesday morning, “is the safety of those who live in this area and the safety of those who work in this area.”