Crews work to keep NYC high-rise stabilized — but that’s just the beginning. Here’s what comes next

Jason Polanco left nearly all of his belongings behind when he and his colleagues, who were just starting their work day, were told to evacuate their Midtown Manhattan office building on Tuesday. They expected it to be short.

Instead, they spent the next hours trying to get inside to retrieve their laptops, papers and other essential items after the structural columns of a nearby high-rise buckled.

Confused and frustrated, evacuated workers fled office buildings and hotel guests lugged their luggage out of the danger zone amid questions about the building saying it was “unstable” and could cause a “local collapse.”

Both fire officials and Polanco’s office said they did not offer an exact timeline for when those people would be able to get inside, with estimates ranging from a few days to two weeks. A day after the incident, several nearby buildings were evacuated and surrounding streets, usually packed with people, were mostly empty due to closures as crews continued stabilization efforts.

The building on East 42nd Street has not been moved since Tuesday morning, but four nearby buildings have been evacuated, city officials said. Its developer said it had been stabilized by temporary support works and that no part of it was at risk of collapse at any point, although the city created an official “collapse zone” around it after warning it was unstable.

Police officers were seen walking along barricades to keep pedestrians away. Throughout the day, curious passersby stopped and stared at the building that used to be Pfizer headquarters. Half a block away, a local bagel shop, nail salon and Dunkin’ remained closed.

Here’s what we know about what happens next:

Shoring will help stabilize the building

Officials said construction crews worked through the night to reinforce the building’s weakest points and then began adding new steel supports to ensure workers could begin safely stabilizing the building through a process called bracing.

Nathan Berman, founder and chief executive of MetroLoft, the skyscraper’s developer, said they were expected to finish shoring up the affected floors by Thursday morning.

The affected columns and beams will be completely replaced if the Department of Buildings allows crews to do so, he said.

Workers are using emergency jacks and installing new steel supports to help stabilize the building, according to the head of the city’s Department of Buildings.

Support jacks are heavy-duty adjustable supports used to temporarily support vertical structures such as ceilings, concrete slabs, and walls. They are often used to maintain stability during construction.

To fully stabilize the building, engineers may need to extend the shoring system up to 20 stories down to the foundation and extend the overhanging stories above. As of Wednesday, more than 100 additional support jacks had been delivered to the site and were awaiting installation.

According to structural engineer Matthew Roblez, crews doing shoring work need to take precautions because their jobs are inherently risky. He said they worked closely with structural engineers to find the right places to add support or strength.

Chris Cerino, former president of the National Council of Societies of Structural Engineers and the New York Society of Structural Engineers, said large-scale support operations occur regularly in New York City because they are common in dense cities with older buildings.

Buttresses and columns “transfer the weight in hazardous areas to the foundation,” Cerino said. “They will probably install support pillars, which are small columns above and below the fault area, across the entire height of the building.”

an unusual reason

The building’s structural damage was caused by faulty columns supporting too much weight, Berman said.

MetroLoft added about 18,000 square feet of space across 15 upper floors, and the additional load caused two columns to buckle, Berman said. He later added that some of these floors had shifted and sagged as much as ten inches.

Berman said the columns were bowing because they were either not properly strengthened or “were overlooked in the strengthening process.” He said the exact cause would be determined “in due course.”

City officials said twisted columns between the building’s existing structure and the new floors being built were causing the floor to sag.

Cerino told CNN that buckling beams in a remodeled building is very unusual and that the problem presents a “unique” and “very challenging” situation.

Union workers first noticed the bent beams on the 21st floor of the high-rise and helped people out, the spokesman said.

Steamfitters Local 638 union workers “helped get everyone out of there” in a timely manner, said Will Thomas, a spokesman for the union.

The damaged part will be rebuilt

The skyscraper is being converted into apartments, which is a more complex process than building from scratch and requires extensive structural, plumbing and mechanical work.

MetroLoft said it will fix the problem that caused the structural damage and rebuild the affected portion alongside ongoing construction.

MetroLoft said work to rebuild twisted sections of the skyscraper will not delay the construction project, which is scheduled to be completed next year, adding that this is a localized situation affecting fewer than 30 of the more than 1,600 apartments.

The project will add 19 stories to the existing 10-story building at 219 East 42nd Street and renovate the adjacent 33-story tower at 235 East 42nd Street, according to architecture firm Gensler.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke of the city’s efforts to convert office space into homes “as part of our response to the housing crisis,” saying it must be done safely and “in a completely accountable manner.”

Some engineering and construction experts say that because the incident was a “one-off” event, it should not deter future repurposing projects aimed at addressing the housing shortage.

The project was an “unusually ambitious” project, adding 11 new floors to a 60-year-old structure, according to Kemal Çelik, an associate professor of civil and urban engineering at New York University in Abu Dhabi.

“The lesson is that when a project changes what a building must carry, it needs the deepest level of structural review possible—before construction, not during construction,” he said.

“The message is not that conversions are dangerous; it is that old buildings deserve new questions before we ask them to carry new loads.”

Investigation of structural failure

The city’s Department of Buildings said a thorough investigation into the structural failure will help determine how it happened, what caused it and how similar incidents can be prevented in the future.

It will include, among other things, review of construction documents, interviews with witnesses, and review of video or photographic evidence available at the site.

“Contractors and construction site safety professionals have a legal responsibility to ensure a safe working environment on construction sites for the safety of their workers and the general public,” the Department of Buildings said. he said.

The agency said any action against those responsible for the structural failure is pending the results of the ongoing investigation.

The agency requested that the building’s owner hire a third-party engineer to conduct a forensic evaluation, a formal investigation to determine the cause of structural failure.

Developer already facing lawsuit

Court records show that as MetroLoft continues to deal with the fallout from the skyscraper incident, it is also facing a lawsuit filed by a construction worker who suffered a “serious injury” in the same area last year.

According to the civil lawsuit filed in New York State court in November, Wilmer Cabrera Rojas was standing on the board while working on the building when the building “collapsed,” causing him to fall and suffer “serious and permanent injuries.”

The lawsuit was also filed against site owner 235 Fee Owner LLC, limited liability companies and others. The building owner was also the subject of an anonymous complaint investigated by the Department of Buildings, which accused the company of building against previously approved plans.

Lawyers for the building’s defendants denied the allegations in court filings and any liability for the accident and filed a third-party complaint against the construction company that employed Rojas.

An attorney representing the construction company also denied the defendants’ allegations and could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Lawyers for the defendants filed a motion to dismiss Roja’s lawsuit on Monday, citing the plaintiff’s failure to comply with discovery requests.

The building also received numerous complaints about falling objects and unsafe conditions, but it is unclear who filed them. The building’s owner did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

When can evacuees return?

Since the beginning of the incident, the size of the frozen zone has been gradually reduced, roads have been reopened and most evacuation orders have been lifted, with crews working to stabilize the building.

The mayor said some evacuations have ended, but four buildings are still under construction. Part of another building, which also houses a restaurant on the ground floor, is also under an evacuation order, he said.

Evacuated workers like Jason Polanco and local businesses near the site now face uncertainty about when workdays will return to normal.

For now, he said, Polanco and his team will likely work at a nearby coffee shop until they can return to the building. But businesses that rely on meeting customers in person, such as a doctor’s office or a massage business, will likely be hit the hardest, he said.

CNN’s Holly Yan, Elizabeth Wolfe, Gloria Pazmino, Jeff Winter, Rebekah Riess, Sara Smart and Julianna Bragg contributed to this report.

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