got a $720 million loan<\/a> from Madison Realty Capital, which at the time was the largest construction loan in the city for an office conversion, Mr. Berman said.<\/p>\nTuesday was not the first time inspectors had been called to the site over falling objects. Last July, the Buildings Department fined the developer $5,000 after a piece of window glass fell from the eighth floor onto a sidewalk shed. Officials fined company $10,000 in August, after a metal pane fell from the 33rd floor onto the sidewalk below. Both times, inspectors issued temporary stop work orders.<\/p>\n
Then in December, the developer was fined another $10,000 for failing to file a timely injury report after a worker fell six feet from a ladder while dismantling a crane. A city inspector said that the ladder was not fully open and on a level surface, which contributed to the fall.<\/p>\n
Investigators did not find evidence to substantiate other complaints of unsafe work conditions. One such complaint stated that a large item had fallen and broken through five floors, narrowly missing a worker.<\/p>\n
All the complaints were listed as resolved in the agency\u2019s online database.<\/p>\n
Until Tuesday, the building had 13 active violations from 2025, mostly for failing to file elevator inspection and testing reports, with penalties totaling $39,000.<\/p>\n
A 311 complaint filed against the project on Tuesday accused the developers of conducting excavation that was beyond or contrary to construction plans that had been approved, according to the agency\u2019s online portal. Specifics of the complaint were not yet available, but the Buildings Department said it was investigating.<\/p>\n
Mr. Johnsen, the union official, said the incident was highly unusual, and he claimed that the builders had not used enough steel to support the weight of the additional floors. His claim could not be verified.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not something you see,\u201d he said, noting the union\u2019s role in building Hudson Yards, the World Trade Center, Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center.<\/p>\n
Abi Aghayere, a professor of structural engineering at Drexel University, likened office-to-residential renovations to \u201cstructural gymnastics.\u201d During those intermediate stages, a lot of work would be happening in the building that could give rise to potential problems.<\/p>\n
For example, beams that support columns that bear vertical loads might be moved. Those types of problems could emerge because of a faulty design or because of an error by the construction workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s going to be a lot of cutting of holes and slabs and all that to make room for all the HVAC and the plumbing for each individual residential unit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said photos of the buckling seemed to show that at least one affected column was old, and potentially corroded or rotted.<\/p>\n
He said investigators should \u201cstrip\u201d the building \u2014 look under any superficial exterior surface, like paint, to see what\u2019s actually going on in the \u201cskeleton.\u201d That would help determine both how to stabilize the building temporarily and whether it was viable to continue with the project at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one knows what stage the structure is in right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Jamison Morse, principal at PVEDI Engineering, said what happens next would be determined by what inspectors discover.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did the error lie? Were there bad assumptions? Bad information given to the engineer? Or were the contractors doing something that the engineer didn\u2019t recommend and were they cowboying it?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said it was likely that the developers would try to fix the problem and move on. But he said it was also possible that the solution would be so expensive that it would derail the project entirely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe entire structural engineering community is watching this one pretty closely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Evacuations from the frozen zone disrupted operations for at least one foreign consulate, a cable news station and several hotels.<\/p>\n
Kevin Reardon, the executive chef at the Westin New York Grand Central, fielded calls from his staff members as he stood along Third Avenue with a group of Westin hotel employees who had been evacuated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re coming in today,\u201d he told one caller.<\/p>\n
The workers and their guests had been made to leave their belongings behind, he said, complicating guests\u2019 stays and workers\u2019 commutes home. \u201cPeople have cars inside so they can\u2019t get home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On East 43rd Street, Christy Walls huddled over a pizza with her two children and college roommate, backpacks stacked on the Manhattan ground. They were supposed to check in for a stay at the Hampton Inn Manhattan Grand Central, but the hotel was evacuated and blocked off by street barricades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re standing on the street with security and police,\u201d her friend, Emily Oehler, argued on the phone with Hilton. \u201cI don\u2019t want you to cancel it because I need a room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. Walls, here for a two-night stay from West Virginia to see \u201cThe Outsiders\u201d on Broadway, said they were trying to get their reservation switched to another Hampton Inn. One hotel had already turned them down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just need a place to stay,\u201d Ms. Walls said.<\/p>\n
Caitlyn Freeman, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Hurubie Meko, Ryley Ober and Wesley Parnell contributed reporting. Alain Delaqu\u00e9ri\u00e8re contributed research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twenty-one stories above a Midtown Manhattan street on Tuesday morning, construction workers were busy converting an office building…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[110901,433,6722,1908,12616,88997,82869,75,84,83,43405,9,24,56,63,578,89851],"class_list":["post-292692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-235-east-42nd-street-manhattan","tag-affordable-housing","tag-apartments","tag-area-planning-and-renewal","tag-building-construction","tag-buildings-structures","tag-buildings-department-nyc","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-midtown-area-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential","tag-steel-and-iron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292692","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=292692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}