Buckled columns at Midtown Manhattan high-rise under construction prompt evacuations

durangodawood · Tuesday at 11:57 AM

Buckling columns within a 35 story construction project in NYC. This is an office to residential conversion of an existing building. Thy added additional floors, apparently. What in the world do they do with structural failure in a high rise like this? I'm curious.

• A high-rise under construction in New York City and nearby buildings are evacuated after structural columns buckled on the 21st floor of the 33-story building, according to the fire department.

• No injuries were reported and all workers were accounted for, the FDNY said.

• Some nearby buildings were being evacuated as a precaution. Most of 42nd and 43rd Streets, between 1st and 3rd Avenues, have been closed to pedestrians and vehicles.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/live-news/nyc-pfizer-building-evacuations?t=1783443041522

durangodawood · Tuesday at 11:58 AM

In case anyone was going to ask: they added the two new floors at the top. Not the middle.

Also:

“It’s a very serious situation,” New York City Fire Department Chief John Esposito added.

“The box beams, the steel beams, have started to bend and deflect from the weight. We evacuated the building and started evacuations of surrounding buildings, and the building has continued to move since we’ve been on the scene,” Esposito said.

DaisyDay · Tuesday at 12:08 PM

durangodawood said:
Buckling columns within a 35 story construction project in NYC. This is an office to residential conversion of an existing building. Thy added two additional floors, apparently. What in the world do they do with structural failure in a high rise like this? I'm curious.

Did you see the video of the buckled columns? I don't know if that is salvageable as the support is already bent and sunken with a tremendous amount of weight on them and them being on the bottom of the structure. .

It may be that the building will just have to come down, but I'm not a structural engineer. Stuff like that (buildings in the process of collapse), pose a tremendous hazard to the neighboring structures - and that is a structure-rich area.

durangodawood · Tuesday at 12:14 PM

DaisyDay said:
Did you see the video of the buckled columns? I don't know if that is salvageable as the support is already bent and sunken with a tremendous amount of weight on them and them being on the bottom of the structure. .

It may be that the building will just have to come down, but I'm not a structural engineer. Stuff like that (buildings in the process of collapse), pose a tremendous hazard to the neighboring structures - and that is a structure-rich area.

Ive studied a bit of structural engineering (what you get with a degree in architecture). But this is way over my head. My guess is the whole building is cooked. Failing columns in one area change load patterns elsewhere, introducing all sorts of unknowns. It would never be safe to even go in there.

I saw the vid but couldnt really make out any columns. Just non structural wall framing. But that was quite deformed indicating structural failure elsewhere.

DaisyDay · Tuesday at 12:40 PM

durangodawood said:
Ive studied a bit of structural engineering (what you get with a degree in architecture). But this is way over my head. My guess is the whole building is cooked. Failing columns in one area change load patterns elsewhere, introducing all sorts of unknowns. It would never be safe to even go in there.

I saw the vid but couldnt really make out any columns. Just non structural wall framing. But that was quite deformed indicating structural failure elsewhere.

I suspect they'll get demolition experts to use explosives to implode the building, to make it collapse inward.

Buildings fall down from time to time in NYC, but almost always smaller, older ones.

durangodawood · Tuesday at 1:26 PM

Yeah thats^^^ steel stud partition framing. Doesnt hold up anything. But definitely indicates structural failure somewhere off camera.

Valletta · Tuesday at 1:45 PM

durangodawood said:
Buckling columns within a 35 story construction project in NYC. This is an office to residential conversion of an existing building. Thy added additional floors, apparently. What in the world do they do with structural failure in a high rise like this? I'm curious.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/live-news/nyc-pfizer-building-evacuations?t=1783443041522

So far no injuries have been reported. Thank God. Looks like at least a major quality control failure.

Vambram · Tuesday at 1:46 PM

SimplyMe · Tuesday at 2:10 PM

DaisyDay said:
I suspect they'll get demolition experts to use explosives to implode the building, to make it collapse inward.

View attachment 381163

Buildings fall down from time to time in NYC, but almost always smaller, older ones.

While I don't really have knowledge of this type of demolition, my understanding is that they can't use explosives to implode the building. There are a couple of issues. The first is that it is unsafe to send a crew to install the explosives, merely the act of installing the explosives could bring down the building, ignoring the weight of the workers moving around. The second issue is, as durangodawood mentions, is that it is nearly impossible to calculate the stress points where the explosives would need to go; particularly as the building keeps shifting, which will change the stress points.

In what seems to be almost a related issue, I watched a video about a tower that was being built along the East River in NY. The firm building tried to be cheap in creating the foundation and, as they constructed the building upward, the building started leaning. This building has become an issue because it can't be finished, due to the structural issues and because of the way it is slanting and "settling" on the weak foundation, they can't use explosives to implode it (at least not without risk to the surrounding buildings).

It will be interesting to see what they do with the collapsing building but, and hopefully I'm wrong, the plans are largely going to be how to get it to fall in the way that does the least damage around it -- as there is no longer a way to bring the building down safely.

DaisyDay · Tuesday at 2:35 PM

SimplyMe said:
The first is that it is unsafe to send a crew to install the explosives,

I hadn't thought of that important point.

What a mess!

durangodawood · Tuesday at 2:36 PM

SimplyMe said:
It will be interesting to see what they do with the collapsing building but, and hopefully I'm wrong, the plans are largely going to be how to get it to fall in the way that does the least damage around it -- as there is no longer a way to bring the building down safely.

The developers seem to be downplaying the whole thing, as youd expect. "Localized" failure only. Whatever that means - with 11 new floors added.

SimplyMe said:

Interesting. A bit poetic for my taste. But good insight into how human greed can come back to bite. Also see: San Fran Millennium Tower.

ThatRobGuy · Tuesday at 3:48 PM

I was just reading that it's the former Pfizer headquarters. You'd think that a building that used to be occupied by that many people and that much office equipment/infrastructure would have been structurally sound enough to add a few floors for residential use.

I guess they've been working from the outside, and monitoring the situation with drones. And the approach that's being floated is something called "shoring", which I had to look up.

"new steel temporary columns placed adjacent to the damaged ones — that pick up the load the bent column can no longer carry safely."

Valletta · Tuesday at 3:53 PM

ThatRobGuy said:
I was just reading that it's the former Pfizer headquarters. You'd think that a building that used to be occupied by that many people and that much office equipment/infrastructure would have been structurally sound enough to add a few floors for residential use.

I guess they've been working from the outside, and monitoring the situation with drones. And the approach that's being floated is something called "shoring", which I had to look up.

"new steel temporary columns placed adjacent to the damaged ones — that pick up the load the bent column can no longer carry safely."

Just like our nation's truck drivers, workers should be both qualified and licensed.

DaisyDay · Tuesday at 3:56 PM

Valletta said:
Just like our nation's truck drivers, workers should be both qualified and licensed.

Are you blaming this on the workers?

Valletta · Tuesday at 4:00 PM

DaisyDay said:
Are you blaming this on the workers?

Not me, all workers should be qualified and licensed, including welders.

durangodawood · Tuesday at 4:49 PM

ThatRobGuy said:
I was just reading that it's the former Pfizer headquarters. You'd think that a building that used to be occupied by that many people and that much office equipment/infrastructure would have been structurally sound enough to add a few floors for residential use.

I still cant find exactly how many floors they were adding to the area that failed.

A whole building level is not a small load, usually.

DaisyDay · Tuesday at 4:56 PM

Valletta said:
Not me, all workers should be qualified and licensed, including welders.

Are you intending to imply that these workers are not qualified and licensed?

NxNW · Tuesday at 6:10 PM

durangodawood said:
In case anyone was going to ask: they added the two new floors at the top. Not the middle.

Maybe they should have added them to the bottom.

durangodawood · Tuesday at 6:12 PM

NxNW said:
Maybe they should have added them to the bottom.

Smart. That would make them easier to get to.

NxNW · Tuesday at 6:13 PM

And it's the Pfizer building, which proves that vaccines aren't even safe for steel beams!

Buckled columns at Midtown Manhattan high-rise under construction prompt evacuations

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