New York City officials said Tuesday they were “confident” that a Midtown Manhattan high-rise feared to be at risk of a “pancake” collapse had been stabilized, though they cautioned that the building could still shift.
Ahmed Tigani, commissioner of the New York City Department of Buildings, said Tuesday evening that emergency shoring installed at the former Pfizer headquarters on East 42nd Street appeared to be effective.
“We’ve been monitoring the building for many hours,” Tigani said. “We have not seen any movement.”
Still, Tigani stressed that authorities were continuing to keep a close watch on the 37-story tower, with inspections and monitoring taking place both inside and outside the structure.
“If there is any movement or if we sense any movement, we have protocols in place to make sure we’re quickly removing people outside the building to evaluate and reassess,” he added.
Earlier in the day, officials said two structural columns on the building’s 21st floor had buckled, while a third column was also showing signs of movement.
Tigani said officials personally went to the 21st floor to examine the emergency work, which informed their latest assessment of the building’s condition.
He said crews were also putting “new steel” in place as an additional emergency measure aimed at reinforcing the skyscraper and keeping it stable.
FDNY Chief of Operations John Esposito had said the building on East 42nd Street could ‘possibly’ collapse into itself like a ‘pancake’
FDNY officials had warned the 37–story former Pfizer headquarters on East 42nd Street was at risk of a localized structural collapse
FDNY found two structural columns had buckled on the 21st floor of the high–rise
NYC Department of Buildings commissioner Ahmed Tigani said Tuesday evening that authorities were ‘confident’ the towering building had stabilized
The building, at 235 East 42nd Street near Second Avenue, was evacuated during the morning rush after construction workers discovered structural columns buckling inside the high–rise.
A complaint was filed on Tuesday as investigators began scrutinizing what went wrong inside one of the nation’s largest office–to–residential conversion projects.
Four nearby buildings – 815 2nd Avenue, 235 East 43rd Street, 231 East 43rd Street and 225 East 43rd Street – remained under an evacuation order as of Tuesday night, according to NYC emergency authorities on X.
Meanwhile, 217 East 43rd Street was under a partial evacuation, with just the restaurant on the ground floor required to stay away from the area.
However, residents on higher floors were allowed to return.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani had said emergency officials had been monitoring the building continuously since the first signs of structural failure emerged Tuesday morning – and the movement had not stopped.
‘The concern is that since we have been on site in the early morning, we have seen continued shifting of the structure,’ Mamdani said during an earlier afternoon briefing.
Terrifying footage filmed by workers inside the building showed the massive silver beams buckling and bending just moments before the floor started to crumble
The 21st to 26th floors of the building near Grand Central Terminal caved in under stress, officials say. Multiple cracks and sagging floors have been reported throughout the site
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said emergency crews observed continued movement in the building throughout the day on Tuesday
Authorities quickly cleared eight neighboring buildings and established a large exclusion zone spanning East 40th to East 45th Streets between First and Third avenues, shutting the busy Midtown corridor to both pedestrians and traffic.
Officials previouslysaid highly sensitive monitoring equipment detected continued movement within the structure as crews watched the building from outside.
FDNY Chief of Operations John Esposito had said the building’s steel–frame design meant authorities were not expecting a total collapse, but warned that a localized structural failure remained a very real possibility.
‘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,’ Esposito said.
‘That remains our concern – that it’s moving. We have seen continual movement. It does mean it is not stable.’
When asked whether such a failure could resemble the floors collapsing into one another like a pancake, Esposito replied: ‘Possibly.’
Officials had said two structural columns on the building’s 21st floor had buckled, while another column was also showing movement.
Mamdani described the response earlier on Tuesday as a ‘minute–by–minute assessment,’ urging locals to stay away from the area as engineers determined the safest course of action.
Several FDNY crews outside the 37–story skyscraper on East 42nd Street on Tuesday
East 42nd Street, between Second and Third avenues, is closed to pedestrian and vehicle traffic as officials continue their investigation. Commuters are advised to avoid the area
Authorities said six specialists representing the FDNY, the Department of Buildings and the project’s construction management team, entered the building on Tuesday afternoon to conduct a closer inspection after monitoring suggested the structure had not shifted for about two hours.
Drones were also deployed around the building as engineers examined the damaged areas from above.
Esposito said firefighters have been using specialized monitoring equipment capable of detecting movement measuring only fractions of an inch.
‘It’s a very serious situation because the box beams, the steel beams, have started to bend and deflect from the weight,’ Esposito said.
‘We evacuated the building and started evacuations of surrounding buildings. The building has continued to move since we have been on the scene.’
Behind the emergency response, investigators were also examining whether problems during the renovation project contributed to the dangerous conditions now gripping the building.
The Department of Buildings filed a complaint Tuesday against the property’s owner, 235 Fee Owner LLC, alleging construction had exceeded previously approved plans.
Although the full details of the complaint have not yet been made public, the agency’s online records state that ‘no support of excavation has been approved.’
People look up at the building on Tuesday. Numerous streets were closed to both cars and pedestrians as officials continued to examine the building
Concerned New Yorkers look up with worry as streets around the building are shuttered
The former Pfizer office tower has been undergoing an ambitious transformation since 2024 into a residential development expected to contain roughly 1,500 to 1,600 apartments by 2027.
As part of the project, contractors had been adding 11 new stories above an existing 22–story section of the structure, according to Tigani.
Sources familiar with the response said the compromised areas appear to include the 17th and 21st floors, both located beneath the newly added construction.
Officials later said the 21st through 26th floors had caved under stress, with multiple cracks and sagging floors reported throughout sections of the building.
Despite the alarming damage, city officials have repeatedly emphasized that any structural failure would likely remain confined to part of the building because of its steel–frame construction rather than bringing down the entire tower.
The underlying cause of the structural failure remains unknown.
