An unoccupied Manhattan high-rise that is under construction was deemed “stable” late Tuesday after being at risk of collapse and prompting nearby evacuations, city officials said.
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The area surrounding the 37-story building, in midtown Manhattan near Grand Central Terminal, was evacuated after two structural support columns on its 21st floor began to buckle around 8 a.m. No injuries were reported.
“I can say right now the building is stable,” Ahmed Tigani, the city’s buildings commissioner, told reporters during a Tuesday night news conference. Some evacuation orders had been lifted, Tigani said, adding “we feel confident in the emergency plan that we have.”
He added that the building was being monitored from the inside and outside and still had not moved.
“Right now, we have been in a consistent, stable and safe situation,” Tigani said. “We have been able to bring in a plan and materials to stabilize the impacted floors and [are] looking to extend that stability plan to other parts of the building.”
A city official told NBC New York Tuesday evening that prep work was being wrapped up and installation of temporary shoring was expected to begin soon after.
The building, formerly home to Pfizer’s global headquarters, is being converted into a 1,500-unit luxury rental complex. The Department of Buildings says it has an active construction permit.
“This is an extremely serious situation, and I am thankful to our first responders for quickly arriving at the site and to New Yorkers for reacting calmly and with urgency,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said earlier Tuesday afternoon.
The city’s fire commissioner said that because the building is made of steel, there is only a possibility of “localized collapse” versus “total collapse.”
Mamdani said authorities were working to develop plans to shore up the affected floor. He said that if the floor is deemed to be secure, engineers will enter and begin shoring up the building “as we await the arrival of materials that will stabilize the building.”
The building did not move after noon, two sources briefed on the investigation told NBC New York.
A team of six people, from the fire department, the Department of Buildings and the building’s contractor, entered to assess whether shoring efforts were safe to begin, according to a city official familiar with the investigation.
