A 37-story Midtown Manhattan tower near Grand Central Terminal was evacuated Tuesday morning after officials warned the building could suffer a localized collapse.
The emergency unfolded at 235 East 42nd Street, between 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue, after authorities received a 7:57 a.m. call about falling bricks. However, officials later said they found no evidence that bricks had actually fallen.
Officials Warn Building Remains Unstable
The high-rise, built in the 1960s, once served as Pfizer’s corporate headquarters before the pharmaceutical giant moved to The Spiral in Hudson Yards in 2018.
On Tuesday, city officials said the situation remained dangerous as emergency crews secured the surrounding area. Mayor Mamdani told reporters near the scene that the building “remains unstable” and urged people to avoid the area.
The warning sent a ripple through Midtown, one of the busiest sections of Manhattan. Still, officials said there were no injuries.
Buckled Columns Trigger Midtown Emergency
Fire officials said the building was sagging between the 21st and 26th floors. First responders also found that two columns had buckled between the 21st and 22nd floors.
“Since arriving on scene, we have witnessed additional movement in one of the compromised columns,” Mamdani said. “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.”
All construction workers who had been inside the building got out safely after crews discovered the structural problems. Meanwhile, officials moved quickly to clear nearby properties before the risk spread beyond the site itself.
Six Nearby Buildings Also Evacuated
The tower is currently being converted into an apartment complex with more than 1,600 units, officials said. The project had reportedly been expected to finish by 2027.
Approximately 130 fire and EMS personnel responded to the scene. As a precaution, officials also evacuated six surrounding buildings.
In a separate earlier briefing, Mamdani said one nearby evacuated building was a school with about 400 children inside. Police also blocked traffic from 40th to 45th Streets between 1st and 3rd Avenues, creating a large safety perimeter around the site.
Fire Chief Says Movement Continued After Crews Arrived
Fire Chief John M. Esposito said officials were still concerned because the building continued to move after crews reached the scene.
“We have specialized tools that we can watch the building from and see movement even in centimeters or fractions of an inch. And since we arrived on the scene and put that in place, we have seen continual movement,” Esposito said.
However, he also sought to calm fears of a catastrophic collapse.
“It’s a steel frame building. So it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse,” he said.
That distinction matters. A localized collapse could still pose a serious danger to workers, first responders and nearby buildings, but officials did not describe the tower as at risk of falling in full.
Drones Deployed As Investigation Begins
The city’s Department of Buildings sent officials to the scene and began using drones to inspect the damaged structure.
Department of Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said investigators were working to determine why the columns buckled in the first place. For now, crews were focused on stabilizing the damaged floors.
“We feel like the next step is making sure we can get onto that 21st floor to add additional emergency trusses to spread that load,” Tigani said.
Officials said the situation was still developing minute by minute. In Midtown, that meant one thing above all: stay back and let engineers decide when the building is safe.
