The old Pfizer World Headquarters building in Midtown on East 42nd Street was evacuated this morning as construction was underway over concerns of a potential collapse.
Workers were evacuated after two columns on the 21st floor of the building were found visibly compromised this morning. The buckled columns, now shaped like sideway Vs, are located on the perimeter of the floor plate, a few inches from the facade.
The steel beam the columns supported started to fail, causing upper floors to sag, per the FDNY.
Gensler is the architect of the office-to-residential conversion project. MetroLoft and David Werner are the development partners. Subcontractors on the building site today were CCM and Windstruct.
The renovation entails installing 1,600 apartments into the building.
A spokesperson for MetroLoft said there have been no injuries. The Department of Buildings said “no debris fell from the building.”
“We want to confirm that the affected area is a small section of one of the two buildings on this site,” the MetroLoft spokesperson said. “As the FDNY spokesperson noted, the entire building itself is not at risk of collapse.”
As part of the renovation, all 2,000 windows of the Pfizer building were replaced, and the metallic exterior was swapped out with a lighter facade. Most of the new windows have been installed; there are still a few openings between mullions.
Ed Miller, a resident of Tudor City, said he started hearing sirens around rush hour. By the time he made his way to 2nd Avenue to see what has happening, 41st Street had been blocked off.
“People were pointing up at the sky,” Miller told AN. “They didn’t know what was going on.”
AN saw NYPD officers entering the Westin Hotel at approximately 11:16 a.m. to evacuate that building. NYU Langone was also evacuated. Engineers have been operating FDNY drones to survey the structure.
AN spoke to a construction worker that was on the 21st floor of the tower when the evacuation was ordered, and an architect on background passing by the Pfizer building.
Per the architect, excessive winds from this weekend may have accelerated structural deficiencies in the column grid, exacerbated by openings in between mullions.
“Wind loads can be disastrous,” the architect said.
A spokesperson for the New York City Mayor’s Office said the city does not know when the area will be cleared for re-entry.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that materials will arrive on the site to shore up the building, to try warding off collapse.
“First and foremost, we want to thank the FDNY, NYPD, and DOB for their quick response,” a spokesperson for MetroLoft told AN. “The safety of everyone at and surrounding the building is our number one priority.”
The Pfizer building is scheduled to open to residents in 2027, as previously reported by AN.
This is an ongoing story.
