Two steel support columns have buckled in a 37-story high-rise on East 42nd Street, forcing a mass evacuation of the Midtown block near Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building.The tower, formerly Pfizer headquarters and now being converted by MetroLoft into about 1,600 apartments, has floors 21 to 26 partially subsiding and is being stabilized with emergency shoring, drone monitoring and centimeter-level instruments.Mayor
Zohran Mamdani,
MetroLoft head
Nathan Berman and
fire department spokesperson
Steve Rhine say a full collapse is unlikely but local collapse risk remains under investigation after earlier complaints to the
New York building department.