{"id":3972,"date":"2026-07-08T10:08:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T10:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=3972"},"modified":"2026-07-08T10:08:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T10:08:04","slug":"exclusive-buckling-building-in-midtown-nyc-will-face-partial-demolition-but-even-stabilizing-it-beforehand-will-be-highly-risky-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=3972","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | Buckling building in Midtown NYC will face partial demolition \u2014 but even stabilizing it beforehand will be highly risky: experts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Midtown high-rise that dangerously buckled Tuesday will need to be partially demolished \u2014 although stabilizing it to even attempt the risky move could prove extremely harrowing, experts told The Post.<\/p>\n

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The 37-story former Pfizer headquarters at 235 E. 42nd St. near Second Avenue will first need to be stabilized as soon as possible to prevent a possible localized collapse, they said.<\/p>\n

Without intervention, it poses a \u201csignificant danger\u201d and \u201ccould collapse,\u201d said Ronald Hamburger, a structural engineer with five decades of experience and who served on the federal team that investigated the World Trade Center catastrophe.<\/p>\n

He noted that the under-construction building\u2019s buckled columns on several of its floors are now only holding about a third of the load they were designed for \u2014 leaving the intact other beams and columns \u201chighly stressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engineers will need to install brackets on the columns in the floor below the failed columns to re-level the structure and ease the load on the intact infrastructure, he said.<\/p>\n

Workers also will have to replace the failed columns \u2014 though the stabilization can only be done after experts assess the safety of the building, as well as the design of the new columns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be done rapidly, it can\u2019t be done immediately,\u201d he said. \u201cEngineers are going to need to go in and assess just how far the damage has progressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be possible to do the repair within a week, stabilizing it, then going about the structural repair,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

But Emily Guglielmo, a structural engineer and principal at Martin\/Martin, noted that even getting engineers inside the building for stabilization will prove to be a risky effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s possible, in order to limit further evacuation life safety concerns, the quickest fix is to try to get that temporary bracing and shoring in there,\u201d she said, adding it will be a \u201cbalancing act\u201d of whether personnel can safely get inside to put supports in \u201cor it\u2019s just too risky of a situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Structural engineers will determine if the building is safe to enter by inspecting the conditions compared to the original drawings to understand how the building was constructed \u2014 and determine what, if anything, crews might have done to trigger the destabilization, experts said.<\/p>\n

Both experts noted that the building will \u201cdefinitely\u201d require at least a partial demolition before a rebuild can start.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe images we have seen show \u2026 a buckled column, you can see cracking, you can see floors that are sagging, those generally are damage that is not reversible,\u201d Guglielmo explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not like we can just push a cracked floor up and it can maintain its capacity, so there will absolutely be removal and replacement of some of these elements.\u201d<\/p>\n

The high-rise commercial-to-residential conversion \u2014 slated to be currently the largest of its kind in New York City with about 1,600 units \u2014 was cleared of hardhats Tuesday when panicked construction workers spotted two faulty support beams bending and starting to give way on its 21st and 22nd floors, according to the NYPD and FDNY.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nine city blocks were quickly cleared and locked in a \u201cfrozen zone\u201d amid the drama.<\/p>\n

Only construction workers were in the building at the time and made it out of the building safely, and no injuries were reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s scare wasn\u2019t the first time the tower was flagged for safety issues, according to a Post review of Department of Buildings records, 311 complaints and a slew of lawsuits filed by former workers.<\/p>\n

The construction site was issued seven violations between July and December 2025, resulting in a total of more than $32,000 in fines, agency records show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis raises some flags,\u201d Hamburger said when asked about the violations.<\/p>\n

The instability issue found Tuesday appeared to stem from ongoing construction involving the addition of 11 floors to the building, sources told The Post.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a couple of credible scenarios,\u201d Hamburger said of the cause for the destabilization, including potentially overloaded columns from an unanticipated load placed somewhere above the 21st floor.<\/p>\n

Another scenario involves construction crews damaging or removing vital components of the building that were providing support to the columns that buckled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to diagnose at this point in time, but it\u2019s very likely that there were heavier loads placed on this column than it was anticipated to support,\u201d Guglielmo said. \u201cIt\u2019s likely that potentially the incorrect member size is there, whether by design or construction.<\/p>\n

\u201cOftentimes when something as catastrophic as this happens, it\u2019s a combination of a variety of factors,\u201d she continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it doesn\u2019t show itself immediately. It\u2019s only when enough of the building has gone up, or enough loads have been added.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Midtown high-rise that dangerously buckled Tuesday will need to be partially demolished \u2014 although stabilizing it to even attempt the risky move could prove extremely harrowing , experts told The Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metro"],"yoast_head":"\nExclusive | Buckling building in Midtown NYC will face partial demolition \u2014 but even stabilizing it beforehand will be highly risky: experts - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=3972\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exclusive | Buckling building in Midtown NYC will face partial demolition \u2014 but even stabilizing it beforehand will be highly risky: experts - 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