{"id":297748,"date":"2026-07-16T16:12:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T16:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/297748\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T16:12:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T16:12:52","slug":"efforts-to-stabilize-manhattan-building-with-buckled-columns-continue-as-investigation-launched-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/297748\/","title":{"rendered":"Efforts to stabilize Manhattan building with buckled columns continue as investigation launched | News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The former Pfizer World Headquarters at 219-235 East 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. Photo by Jim Henderson, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.<\/p>\n

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One week after concerning structural issues were reported<\/a> at a building in Midtown Manhattan, work is continuing to stabilize the structure. The 37-story building at 235 East 42nd Street is currently undergoing a major office-to-residential conversion led by Metro Loft, with Gensler<\/a> listed as design architect, interior architect, and architect-of-record for the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Archinect previously reported<\/a> on the conversion of the former Pfizer headquarters in 2025, when the project was announced as one of the largest office-to-residential conversions in New York City.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, officials found buckled columns<\/a>, cracks, and sagging floors at the site. FDNY officials said the structural issues were found between the 21st and 26th floors after a call came in around 8 a.m. The building and nearby properties were evacuated, including a school and the Israeli consulate.<\/p>\n

Now, contractors are installing shoring and erecting an exterior netting enclosure on the north side of the building. Officials have said that the building has not shown any signs of new movement. In the meantime, the NYC Department of Buildings<\/a> has begun an investigation into the cause of the failure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The approach taken to stabilize the building is also the topic of discussion over on the Archinect Forum<\/a>, with some readers expressing skepticism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they used temporary shoring posts to redistribute the load of 14 floors above so it is now bearing on an existing floor slab rather than a failed column?\u201d one user wrote. \u201cThat doesn’t seem much better.\u00a0 How long until that floor slab fails?\u00a0 Shouldn’t they have inserted new columns all the way down to ground level?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTemporary shoring is precisely to stabilize it until the correct fix can be installed,\u201d another user replied. \u201cThere would need to be hydraulic jacks to realign the beams and new post installed but what you suggest can’t be done in the time frame they needed to stabilize the building because it was mere hours from actual collapse of the floors all the way down.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tSimilar articles on Archinect that may interest you…<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" anchor The former Pfizer World Headquarters at 219-235 East 42nd Street in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-297748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297748","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=297748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}