Criminal investigation launched into Midtown Manhattan high-rise buckling as developer faces scrutiny

The buckling event

On the morning of Tuesday, July 7, workers arriving at 235 East 42nd Street encountered alarming damage: two structural steel columns on the 21st floor had bent, concrete floors had cracked, and bricks had fallen to the street. The 37-story building, once the headquarters of Pfizer, is being converted into more than 1,600 apartments. The New York City Fire Department was called, and the building was evacuated along with several nearby offices, hotels, and a school. Within hours, city officials said the structure was stable, and temporary supports were installed. Workers have spent subsequent days shoring up the damaged columns.

The ambitious conversion

The project at 235 East 42nd Street is the largest office-to-residential conversion in the United States, developed by MetroLoft and David Werner Real Estate. The plan called for transforming two connected buildings, one from 1909, the other from the 1960s, into 1,600 luxury apartments, a rooftop pool, shops, and a fitness center. The conversion involved adding over a dozen stories atop the older structure and punching holes through the floor plates to bring light into apartments. The contractor’s website said it would “thread through” the older building with a new poured-concrete addition. The work was expected to finish early next year.

Criminal inquiry and developer scrutiny

On Friday, July 10, the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the New York City Department of Investigation confirmed they had opened a preliminary criminal investigation into the buckling. A DOI spokeswoman said the agency was examining the situation, while a DA spokeswoman declined to comment. The inquiry is in its earliest stages, and no targets have been named. The Wall Street Journal reported that MetroLoft is also facing a $30 million lawsuit over construction and renovation problems at a Tribeca luxury building, filed before this week’s incident. Nathan Berman, MetroLoft’s managing principal, declined to comment on the investigation.

It is unusual.

Engineering perspectives

Structural engineers consulted by several outlets said the most likely cause of the column failure was excessive additional load. Guy Nordenson, a professor at Princeton University and principal of Guy Nordenson and Associates, told El Confidencial that buckling usually results from an unusual load, but loads during construction are typically the most extreme a building sees. Ben Schafer, a structural engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, said the incident does not undermine the profession’s ability to perform such conversions. He noted that the older building would likely continue carrying its own weight while a new structural system supported additions. Emily Guglielmo, a structural engineer in San Francisco, also told The New York Times that the failure probably came from added load.

I don’t think it really brings into question our understanding of how to do something like this.

Inspection firm’s record

Records reviewed by The New York Times show that Domani Inspection Services, the special inspection agency hired to certify the building’s steel welding, bolting, and structural changes, was accused of violating New York City construction rules as recently as 2022. From 2012 to 2017, the Department of Buildings accused Domani of three violations, including conducting unlicensed concrete testing and failing to report a facade collapse. Two cases were dismissed; the third resulted in a $1,000 fine. It is not clear whether any of that inspected work contributed to the failure. Piecing together what happened and who is responsible could take months or years, the Times noted, and the inquiry could close without charges.