NYC’s Midtown Manhattan buildings evacuated after collapse warning

MANHATTAN – Construction crews were pulled from a 37-storey Midtown Manhattan building on the morning of July 7 after bricks were reported falling from the 21st floor, emergency officials said, prompting building evacuations and street closures in one of New York City’s busiest corridors.

Pedestrian and vehicular traffic was closed in a swathe of Manhattan near Grand Central Terminal, a major transit hub, as police, fire and building officials respond to the scene.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a news conference that other buildings and a school have been evacuated while the site is secured.

The Fire Department of New York received a call at 7.57am local time reporting the falling debris at 235 East 42nd Street. Upon arrival, units determined that two columns had buckled on the 21st floor. No injuries have been reported.

The New York Police Department received a separate 911 call at 8.11am local time reporting an unstable structure. Construction workers on the 21st floor told police they saw the columns beginning to buckle. All workers were safely evacuated.

MetroLoft Management and David Werner Real Estate Investments are leading the conversion, which also includes the adjacent tower at 219 East 42nd Street.

“We are aware of what happened and are working closely with the Department of Buildings to understand the full scope of the situation,” MetroLoft said in a statement. “The safety of our workers and the public has always been, and remains, our top priority.”

Department of Buildings inspectors are investigating reports that a steel beam was compromised at the site, where the former headquarters of Pfizer are being converted into residential units.

The two buildings are expected to yield roughly 1,600 rental units, about 400 of them designated affordable housing, making it one of the largest office-to-residential conversions underway in the US.

The developers, through an entity called 235 East 42 Owner, took full control of the site after buying out partner Alexandria Real Estate Equities’ remaining stake. Pfizer vacated the building in 2023 after relocating to a new headquarters at Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s West Side in New York City.

The project is among several reshaping the office stock of Midtown Manhattan as developers convert ageing office towers into apartments amid a broader US housing shortage.

Gensler, the architecture firm on the job, has called the building’s mixed 1960s-era structural systems a uniquely difficult retrofit, with contractors working to pour a new floor every few days to try to meet the 2026 opening. BLOOMBERG