NEW YORK, July 7 (Reuters) – A high-rise building under construction in Manhattan remained at risk of collapse on Tuesday after two of its support columns buckled, officials said as engineers worked to stabilize the building.
The New York City fire department said it received a call just before 8 a.m. ET about bricks falling from the 37-story building located on 42nd Street, which is being converted from an office building to residential apartments.
Officials responding to the scene found two columns had buckled on the 21st and 22nd floors and multiple floors of the building were sagging, the department said.
Nearby buildings, including a school, were evacuated and streets were closed to pedestrian and vehicle traffic, with no injuries reported.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the concern was that the building was still moving hours after the incident was reported. A team of emergency responders and engineers were working to access the site and secure it, he said.
“The building remains unstable,” the mayor told reporters at the scene.
“If the floor is deemed to be secure, engineers will enter and begin shoring up the building as we await the arrival of materials that will stabilize the building,” Mamdani said.
John Esposito, chief of the Fire Department of the City of New York, said preparations for a partial collapse had been made but officials thought any collapse would be contained.
“The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel frame building, so it would not be a total collapse, it would be more of a localized collapse, but that remains our concern that it’s moving,” he said.
The building near Grand Central Terminal was once Pfizer’s corporate headquarters. It is being converted into a 1600-unit apartment building due for completion in 2027, according to the architectural firm Gensler’s website.
(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova in New York and Katharine Jackson in WashingtonEditing by David Ljunggren and Susan Heavey)
