Overview
- Workers reported falling bricks and inspectors found two interior support columns buckled with sagging floors between levels 21 and 26, prompting an immediate evacuation of the 235 East 42nd Street tower.
- City officials closed 42nd and 43rd streets between First and Third Avenues and evacuated multiple nearby buildings, including a school with about 400 children, and reported no injuries.
- About 150 FDNY personnel used drones and precision sensors to monitor ongoing movement in the structure and established a collapse zone while accounting for all workers.
- City structural engineers have drawn plans to install shoring on the affected 21st floor but will only enter to shore the building after sensors show movement is within safe limits; a formal investigation into the causes is underway.
- The tower is the former Pfizer global headquarters undergoing a large office-to-residential conversion of roughly 1,600 units that has accumulated construction violations since 2020, a backdrop that raises questions about the technical challenges of such projects.