{"id":289656,"date":"2026-07-07T21:51:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T21:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/289656\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T21:51:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T21:51:05","slug":"manhattan-high-rise-evacuated-as-inspectors-find-buckling-columns-falling-bricks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/289656\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan high rise evacuated as inspectors find buckling columns, falling bricks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emergency struts and beams would be brought in to strengthen the building, officials said.<\/p>\n

Nearby hotels, businesses, apartments and a school were evacuated and streets were closed as a precaution as police and firefighters swarmed the area, AFP correspondents saw.<\/p>\n

\"FirefightersFirefighters from the New York City Fire Department (NYFD) respond to a building that has been evacuated in the Manhattan borough of New York City on July 7, 2026. Photo \/ Charly Triballeau, AFP<\/p>\n

A drone was deployed to allow officials to assess the extent of the damage.<\/p>\n

The mayor said New Yorkers will be allowed to \u201creturn back into these buildings when we are fully confident that they are safe for them to do so\u201d.<\/p>\n

Local cable channel PIX11 was forced to abandon its studio near the affected building mid-broadcast following an evacuation order.<\/p>\n

\u2018Super dangerous\u2019 <\/p>\n

Clifford Johnsen, a representative of the Steamfitters Local 638 union, said that the addition of new floors on top of the existing office structure had put pressure on the building\u2019s supports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey keep adding. Now you put more weight, and when you put more weight, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen when it\u2019s not engineered correctly or installed incorrectly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in construction 21 years, and I\u2019ve never seen a beam bend in half \u2013 so this is super dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Construction worker Eddie, 28, told AFP he was evacuated from the site and that he \u201cwas down below and I saw everyone starting to come down. Just then, they let me know that a column was broken\u201d.<\/p>\n

Video shared by construction workers seemed to show buckled columns within the building site.<\/p>\n

The edifice sits on a public transport corridor used to ferry World Cup soccer fans from Manhattan to MetLife stadium in New Jersey, but was not active on Tuesday in the absence of any matches there.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople and workers evacuated from nearby buildings due to structural damage look on in the Manhattan borough of New York City on July 7, 2026. Photo \/ Charly Triballeau, AFP<\/p>\n

Construction worker Fernando Sanchez, 50, told AFP \u201cthe beams from around the 21st to 25th floor … bent and part of it collapsed a bit and everyone had to get out quickly. All of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the people evacuated on this side and we are waiting for new orders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The project will total 12,000sq m and bring to the market approximately 1600 luxury rental apartments, according to developers.<\/p>\n

Upon completion, which had been scheduled for early 2027, it would be New York City\u2019s largest ever office-to-residential conversion.<\/p>\n

The developer did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emergency struts and beams would be brought in to strengthen the building, officials said. Nearby hotels, businesses, apartments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[9290,38667,20117,110728,110731,110726,110729,2692,1527,108084,32,110723,110727,110725,21112,12551,1303,110724,75,84,83,7195,9,24,63,42356,9278,11367,18327,13367,11347,2724,110730,8904,110732,38553],"class_list":["post-289656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-after","tag-as","tag-block","tag-bricks","tag-buckled","tag-buckling","tag-busy","tag-columns","tag-construction","tag-during","tag-emergency","tag-evacuated","tag-falling","tag-find","tag-high","tag-hour","tag-inside","tag-inspectors","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-morning","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-officials","tag-rise","tag-rush","tag-said","tag-services","tag-skyscraper","tag-street","tag-structural","tag-tuesday","tag-undergoing","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}