Midtown Manhattan blocks evacuated after beams buckling at construction site
Comments
danofsteel32
comrade1234
They're adding a hunch of floors to an existing building - it was the old Pfizer headquarters and they want to turn it into apartments. Someone either didn't do the proper engineering study, or the original specs weren't accurate.
Figuring out who to blame will probably take years in court.
dlcarrier
More often than a faulty initial design, it's because of a something not being followed, e.g. the design called for one type of material or process and another was used during construction, either on accident or on purpose but without correctly doing the math to verify that it will work.
asdefghyk
Could also be incorrect materials used. than specified? Fake parts? or construction , used that not obvious
fmajid
There was the Citibank headquarters
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/05/29/the-fifty-nine...
pram
I'm not an expert but those look like pretty wimpy columns? Kind of surprising, when I worked in a tower it had exposed concrete columns that were very thick in comparison
rcxdude
I think the first picture is not showing structural columns: they're more a symptom (buckling as the building is moving) as opposed to the cause.
mrguyorama
As the sibling says, that first picture shows essentially interior wall framing. They shouldn't really be seeing any load!
They are buckling because the floors and ceilings are bending!
Scroll down and there is a picture of a much thicker support pillar, though still seems thin? Maybe just the context in frame doesn't do it justice.
archonis
I wonder if Metroloft cut corners on structural engineering practices given that they also exploit non-union workers.
cromka
Having seen the photos, I simply can't imagine how can they recover from that.
Krypto26
You mean they are buckling even without the benefit of being struck with an aircraft or thousands of gallons of burning jet fuel?
gorjusborg
Does anyone here have any knowledge of how something like this gets resolved?
Anon1096
Most likely the building gets stabilized and then anyone involved gets embroiled in lawsuits and it stays standing half finished for years. One Seaport is a famous recent example of an under construction skyscraper getting halted for structural issues. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/161_Maiden_Lane
dlcarrier
They have something like that in San Francisco (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/301_Mission_Street) but they key to finishing it is to not tell anyone it's crooked until after you've sold all of the units.
onlypassingthru
Yes, sometimes gravity resolves the problem for you.
ErroneousBosh
Tie every helicopter you can find to the roof, gas the bent bit off, haul it away and drop it somewhere?
They'll likely shore it up with hydraulic props - probably going through the floor and ceiling to floor slabs above and below - to stabilise it, and then start demolishing the building bit by bit.
kylehotchkiss
When you run the mental model of picking up a building with a bunch of surplus Hueys, do they not all collide together once they start bearing weight?
ErroneousBosh
Not if you make the strings different lengths.
hagbard_c
In that case the helicopters lower in the pecking order will chop off the strings for the higher ones. I thing seagulls is a better idea, if it worked for a giant peach it should work for a building. Plenty of those around and they'll work for peanuts.
tonyedgecombe
Balloons should do it.
singleshot_
“spreader bar”
SilverElfin
Given all the bad press around things like the millennium tower, I think once you have an issue like this, the building is done. No one will want to live there. And given structural problems with load bearing beams, I would expect the building has to be demolished. But maybe they can demolish it top down partially and rebuild up from the compromised area if the city and engineers deem that safe.
fiatpandas
Knocking down a building like this will be a huge pain, extremely expensive, and very dangerous. I think you can assume the developers will try desperately to retrofit the building before demo. There’s good precedence for this even in New York City. Look into the Citicorp case study.
ChrisArchitect
NYT updates (non-paywall) https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/07/07/nyregion/pfizer-buil...
kylehotchkiss
The USA is mostly empty space. Trying to force upwards in such an already dense area just doesn't make sense. We are not constrained the way singapore is.
DHPersonal
Spreading out requires more non-foot travel to get places. Density means things can be closer.
hagbard_c
Seeing how elevators are akin to vertical subways I think that problem goes both ways.
olyjohn
Definitely had to factor in elevator time for my commute when I worked on the 38th floor.
This is a little pedantic but the pictures seem to show failing support columns not beams.
Beams are horizontal and columns are vertical.