An unoccupied Manhattan high-rise that is under construction was deemed “stable” late Tuesday after it was at risk of collapse, prompting nearby evacuations, city officials said.
The area surrounding the 37-story building, in midtown Manhattan near Grand Central Terminal, was evacuated after two structural support columns on its 21st floor began to buckle around 8 a.m. No injuries were reported.
“I can say right now the building is stable,” Ahmed Tigani, the city’s buildings commissioner, said at a news conference Tuesday night. Some evacuation orders had been lifted, Tigani said, adding, “We feel confident in the emergency plan that we have.”
He added that the building was being monitored from the inside and the outside and had not moved.
“Right now, we have been in a consistent, stable and safe situation,” Tigani said. “We have been able to bring in a plan and materials to stabilize the impacted floors and [are] looking to extend that stability plan to other parts of the building.”
A city official told NBC New York on Tuesday evening that prep work was being wrapped up and installation of temporary shoring was expected to begin soon after.
The building, formerly home to Pfizer’s global headquarters, is being converted into a 1,500-unit luxury rental complex. The Department of Buildings says it has an active construction permit.
“This is an extremely serious situation, and I am thankful to our first responders for quickly arriving at the site and to New Yorkers for reacting calmly and with urgency,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said earlier Tuesday afternoon.
The city’s fire commissioner said that because the building is made of steel, there is only a possibility of “localized collapse” versus “total collapse.”
Mamdani said authorities were working to develop plans to shore up the affected floor. He said that 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.”
The building did not move after noon, two sources briefed on the investigation told NBC New York.
A team of six people, from the fire department, the Department of Buildings and the building’s contractor, entered to assess whether shoring efforts were safe to begin, according to a city official familiar with the investigation.
In addition to the building, seven neighboring structures were evacuated — a number that grew as the response escalated, Mamdani said.
By early evening, evacuated residents of nearby 222 E. 44th St. were told it was safe to return, the city official who spoke about the timing of temporary shoring told NBC New York.
Other evacuated buildings near the 37-story high-rise are being evaluated to determine whether they can be repopulated, the official said.
Helder Pereira, whose office building was evacuated at 11:30 a.m., said he and his co-workers had to walk down 32 flights of steps to get out.
“‘I need to get out of here really quick, because I don’t know if the neighboring buildings are collapsing or not,’” he recalled thinking. “It was a bit scary.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on X that the state government “stands ready to provide any assistance needed” and advised people to avoid the area.
The fire department said it got a call around 8 a.m. about bricks falling from the building at 235 E. 42nd St., between Second and Third avenues. The police department said it got a 911 call less than 15 minutes later.
Police said they were told that construction workers on the 21st floor saw the columns beginning to collapse.
Raw video from inside, recorded by a construction worker, showed crumbling steel columns on the 21st floor.
No injuries were reported, and all workers are accounted for, officials said. It is unclear how many workers were on the site when the building began to show signs of distress.
