NYC Mayor Calls It Extremely Serious as Pfizer Building Conversion Puts Thousands at Risk
Just before 8 a.m. on Tuesday, construction workers on the 21st floor of a Midtown Manhattan high-rise noticed the steel columns around them beginning to crack and bend.
Within minutes, they had evacuated. Within hours, a frozen zone had shut down one of the busiest corridors in New York.
The building at 235 East 42nd Street is the former global headquarters of Pfizer, currently being converted into the largest office-to-residential project in the country. On Tuesday, it came close to becoming something else entirely.
Steel Columns Buckle at NYC’s Most Ambitious Office Conversion
Two structural support columns on the 21st floor buckled Tuesday morning, causing floors to sag between the 21st and 26th floors of the 37-story tower…