East 43rd Street remains closed after workers installed additional shoring and exterior safety netting around 235 E. 42nd St., where structural damage halted construction last week.
DOB
Photos show the buckling of structural columns at the Midtown building, which workers say they have been warning about.
DOB
By CARTER MYERS-BROWN
Crews worked through the weekend to stabilize the Midtown office building where two structural columns buckled last week, as the city’s Department of Buildings announced the implementation additional safety measures.
In an update Sunday, the DOB said contractors are working around the clock in shifts to install additional support inside 235 E. 42nd St. and to construct an exterior netting enclosure along the building’s north side. East 43rd Street between Second and Third avenues remains closed and vacate orders for several neighboring buildings remain in effect while they continue to evaluate next steps.
In the days since the columns buckled and the area was evacuated July 7, a chorus of union officials derided the use of nonunion labor at the site by the building’s owner and developer MetroLoft.
“My team sees it all the time,” said Michael Piccirillo an area standards manager with the New York City District Council of Carpenters, to a crowd of reporters near the building last week. “You have projects like this that are 100 percent nonunion. The workers are afraid to speak up. They’re afraid to be deported, and these contractors know that.”
Tafador Sourov, an organizer with the Laborers’ International Union of North America, posted on social media that workers without union representation are often reluctant to report unsafe conditions.
“The root of it all starts with workers not having a voice on the job,” Sourov said, arguing that nonunion construction sites are more likely to cut corners on safety.
Billy Erwin, market development director for Laborers Local 79, contrasted union apprenticeship programs with nonunion training.
“We train everybody,” Erwin said last week “You don’t do profit over safety. Your wallet is not important over someone’s safety.”
‘Very dangerous situation’
The latest update from DOB over the weekend followed Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani’s July 10 remarks that the agency had ordered the project team to further reinforce the structure after temporary shoring was installed from the ninth floor to the roof.
“At DOB’s order, the site’s contractor is focusing on further stabilizing the building,” Tigani said in a video update. He said the temporary supports would be replaced with stronger steel columns and that the city had also directed the installation of an exterior safety net “as an extra layer of safety.”
Tigani said DOB inspectors have remained on site throughout the operation while the agency requires continuous monitoring, third-party engineering oversight and special inspections as stabilization work continues.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said immediately after the July 7 incident that first responders with the FDNY found two structural columns had buckled on the 21st floor, along with multiple cracks and sagging floors. No injuries were reported, and all workers were safely evacuated.
John Esposito, the FDNY’s chief department, said at the July 7 press conference with Mamdani that the buildings beams were clearly bending when FDNY’s inspectors entered the site. He said then that it was a “serious and very dangerous situation.”
As emergency work continues, the investigation into what caused the structural failure has expanded. The city’s Department of Investigation and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have opened a preliminary criminal inquiry into MetroLoft.
The cause of the structural failure has not yet been determined, and city officials have not indicated whether the incident resulted from design, construction or inspection issues. DOB has said it remains in regular communication with the project’s team as stabilization work and the investigation continue.