Emergency services cordoned off a wide stretch of central Manhattan on Tuesday morning after structural columns inside a 37-storey skyscraper under renovation buckled and deformed, raising fears of a partial or full collapse. Streets between 2nd and 3rd Avenue near East 42nd Street — within walking distance of Times Square, Grand Central Station, and the United Nations headquarters — were closed during rush hour as authorities worked to assess and stabilise the building.

The tower is the former global headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, built in 1961. Since 2024, it has been undergoing what was billed as one of the largest office-to-residential conversions in New York City's history, with plans to create approximately 1,600 luxury apartments across a total of around 120,000 square metres. As part of the project, eleven additional floors were added on top of the existing structure — a detail that a union representative cited as a likely factor in the crisis. Clifford Johnsen of the Steamfitters Local 638 construction union said the extra weight placed on the original frame created dangerous instability. "They keep adding. When you put more weight on and it's not designed or installed correctly, this is what happens," he said, adding that in 21 years of construction work he had never seen a beam bend in half.

Workers on site described alarming scenes before they were evacuated. Construction worker Fernando Sanchez, 50, told the AFP news agency that beams between the 21st and 25th floors had twisted and partially collapsed, forcing everyone to leave quickly. Drone footage subsequently used by the fire department confirmed that at least two steel support columns were still actively deforming — shifting by several centimetres over the course of a few hours — with additional cracking, shattered glass, and sinking floors also observed.

Several neighbouring buildings were evacuated as a precaution, including a hotel and a school with around 400 pupils. Brazil's consulate in New York, located close to the site, was also closed and cleared, with the Brazilian foreign ministry saying it would announce a reopening date as soon as possible. No injuries were reported; all construction workers were accounted for. Mayor Zohran Mamdani described the situation as "extremely serious," while stressing the swift response. "Since we arrived on site, we have witnessed additional movement in one of the compromised beams," he said. "The building remains unstable."

Authorities are in talks with the building's contractor, owner, fire department, and structural engineers on the best course of action. Emergency shoring props are being brought in to support the floors, with officials saying extra supports will be installed in case there are additional weak points not yet visible. Mayor Mamdani said residents and workers would only be allowed to return "when we have full confidence that it is safe." The incident highlights the risks associated with large-scale adaptive reuse projects — a growing trend in New York as the city seeks to convert surplus office space into housing — when significant structural modifications are made to ageing buildings.