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A 37-story high-rise under construction in Midtown Manhattan descended into chaos Tuesday morning when two structural support columns buckled on the 21st floor, sending bricks tumbling onto the street below and forcing emergency officials to evacuate the building and numerous nearby structures, including a hotel and a school.
The Fire Department of New York received a call at approximately 8 a.m. reporting bricks falling from 235 East 42nd Street, located between Second and Third avenues near Grand Central Terminal. Within minutes, construction workers on the 21st floor alerted authorities that they had spotted critical support columns beginning to collapse. Police officers arriving at the scene were told by workers that the structural members were buckling dangerously, prompting an immediate self-evacuation of the building.
Upon arrival, fire officials and Department of Buildings inspectors discovered that two columns had buckled on the 21st and 22nd floors, causing multiple floors between the 21st and 26th to sag under the mounting stress. Some accounts described sections of the building as having caved in entirely. A business agent for Steamfitters Local 638 told reporters, “The north side of that building is crumbling. I-beams are bending like cigarettes in there.”
One construction worker who filmed the interior damage showed twisted and crumpled steel beams contorted across the floor. Another worker, Segundo Chauca, who had been employed at the site for over a year, said he was on the eighth floor when the evacuation order came. He described the frantic scene as workers scrambled to leave the building around 7:57 a.m., leaving all their belongings behind.
The emergency response was swift and comprehensive. The FDNY deployed 21 units with 79 personnel to the scene, while Department of Buildings structural engineers launched an immediate investigation into the structural failure. The emergency unfolded during morning rush hour in one of Manhattan’s busiest commercial districts, creating significant disruption to the area’s infrastructure.
To contain the crisis, authorities closed East 42nd Street and 43rd Street between First and Third Avenues to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. A nearby hotel, the Hampton Inn Manhattan Grand Central, was evacuated, with guests hastily removed from their rooms. A school with approximately 400 children was also evacuated as a precaution. In total, at least nine other neighboring buildings were evacuated to prevent any potential secondary structural failures.
Despite the severity of the structural damage and the scale of the emergency response, authorities reported no injuries. All construction workers were accounted for and all occupants of nearby buildings were safely removed from the affected area.
The building, formerly the global headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, has been undergoing one of the nation’s most ambitious residential conversion projects. Developed by Metro Loft Management and David Werner Real Estate Investments, with Gensler serving as the design architect, the project aims to create more than 1,600 apartments, including over 400 affordable housing units, along with extensive amenities including a rooftop pool and fitness center. The conversion was billed as the largest office-to-residential conversion in New York City history, with work scheduled to be completed in 2027.
The former Pfizer tower at 235 East 42nd Street is a 33-story structure designed by renowned architect Emery Roth & Sons in the International Style and constructed in 1960. Interiors demolition on the conversion project had commenced in mid-2024, and the development had secured major financing commitments, including a $720 million construction loan from Madison Realty Capital finalized in May 2025.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani addressed the situation, stating that the city’s top priority was the safety of those who live and work in the area. “All of this is a reflection of the fact that our top priority right now is the safety of those who live in this area, the safety of those who work in this area,” he said. He urged anyone in the vicinity to follow instructions from first responders and indicated that assessments were continuing on a minute-by-minute basis to determine when access to the affected streets might be restored.
Metro Loft Management released a statement acknowledging the incident: “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 Department of Buildings noted that the building maintains an active construction permit and said its structural engineers were on scene to investigate the structural failure. The cause of the buckling remained under investigation, with officials indicating that additional information would emerge as inspectors completed their assessment of the damage.