{"id":291501,"date":"2026-07-09T16:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/291501\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T16:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T16:30:10","slug":"union-steamfitters-prevent-catastrophic-midtown-manhattan-building-crash-peoples-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/291501\/","title":{"rendered":"Union Steamfitters prevent catastrophic midtown Manhattan building crash \u2013 People’s World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Union\t<\/p>\n

The building at 235 East 42nd Street is seen Tuesday, July 7, 2026, in New York. Fast action by the workers and their union prevented collapse of the building| Angelina Katsanis\/AP<\/p>\n

NEW YORK\u2014In all the worries and angst over loss of jobs nationwide, what is often overlooked is that there are certain skills, observations, and alertness only humans can perform\u2014such as preventing a catastrophic building collapse in midtown Manhattan.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened at 235 East 42nd Street on July 7, when two members of Steamfitters Local 638 discovered buckling beams, sagging floors, and falling concrete at a massive condo conversion project\u2019s 21st story. They alerted supervisors, got out, and got every other worker\u2014union and non-union\u2014out, fast.<\/p>\n

And then, responding to a 911 call, police and Fire Fighters arrived and evacuated several blocks. Traffic snarled for hours, and people fled hotels and businesses. But nobody got hurt.<\/p>\n

The building, the former headquarters of the Pfizer pharmaceutical company, was being converted from a 22-story office tower to a 37-story future residential building.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But to add 15 floors, you need to reinforce the building\u2019s structural steel, Local 638 President Robert Bartels and Cliff Johnsen, the local\u2019s Business Agent for Midtown East, said in a telephone interview with People\u2019s World.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Apparently, that didn\u2019t happen. There was also no exterior bracing on the building.<\/p>\n

On July 7, the two Steamfitters \u201cstarted to notice the windows were cracking. And then the concrete was dropping down to the next floor,\u201d said Johnsen. \u201cAnd the walls were collapsing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When you add 15 or 16 floors to an existing building, its steel reinforcing vertical structure \u201chas to be buoyed up or changed,\u201d one of the two said. It wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The two Steamfitters on the 21st floor alerted Johnsen, and an unidentified supervisor called 911. The two workers got out and got everyone else out. The Steamfitters and the Elevator Constructors are the only union workers on the condo conversion project.<\/p>\n

\"\"An NYPD officer puts up caution tape near East 41st Street after buildings in the area were evacuated, Tuesday, July 7, 2026, in New York| Angelina Katsanis\/AP<\/p>\n

The Fire Fighters, who are also unionized, arrived quickly to battle the hazard, while police evacuated midtown blocks around the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also blocked off major adjoining streets, including stretches of 2nd Avenue and 3rd Avenue, along with 42nd and 43rd Streets. Traffic was snarled for hours. Hotels and residential buildings were evacuated, along with a private school across 42nd Street.<\/p>\n

City officials, including Mayor Zohran Mamdani, reported no injuries, but city Building Department inspectors discovered \u201csevere structural damage\u201d between the building\u2019s 21st and 26th floors, the New York Times reported.<\/p>\n

On the evening of July 7, Ahmed Tigani, the Department of Buildings Commissioner, pronounced 235 East 42nd Street \u201cstable\u201d and the agency slowly let evacuated people return to nearby buildings, including stores, hotels, and consulates near the United Nations.<\/p>\n

But traffic was still curtailed, and Tignani admitted the situation in the neighborhood would remain tense for the next few days. The building is midway between the UN and Grand Central Station.<\/p>\n

The inspectors ordered extra shoring for the bending beams and other fixes. An investigation of the structural problems began, but Johnsen and Bartels offered their own reasons.<\/p>\n

One is that the prime conversion contractor did not strengthen the building\u2019s superstructure below the 21st floor to carry much more weight before starting work on the extra floors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other is \u201cThis is a profit over safety situation,\u201d said Bartels.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which means it could have been prevented had the contractor spent a little more money to prevent such a hazard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NYPD and the Fire Department do an absolutely magnificent job, but there was no reason to put their lives in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

We hope you appreciated this article. At\u00a0People\u2019s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading\u00a0People\u2019s World\u00a0and the stories we bring you, please\u00a0support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today<\/a>. Thank you!<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCONTRIBUTOR<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mark<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The building at 235 East 42nd Street is seen Tuesday, July 7, 2026, in New York. Fast action…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[1213,45575,75,84,83,9,24,63,1986,111358,4107],"class_list":["post-291501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-labor","tag-labor-power","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-safety","tag-steamfitters","tag-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291501","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=291501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}