NYC Midtown Skyscraper at Risk of Collapse

A crippled Midtown Manhattan skyscraper could partially collapse unless crews move quickly to save it, but experts warn that even stepping inside the buckling tower may be a terrifying gamble.

The 37-story former Pfizer headquarters at 235 E. 42nd St., near Second Avenue, was thrown into chaos Tuesday after construction workers spotted two support columns bending and beginning to give way on the 21st and 22nd floors.

Now, structural experts say the damaged high-rise will almost certainly have to be partially demolished. Before that can happen, however, engineers must somehow stabilize the building without putting workers directly in harm’s way.

Without emergency intervention, the tower poses a “significant danger” and “could collapse,” warned Ronald Hamburger, a structural engineer with five decades of experience who served on the federal team that investigated the World Trade Center disaster.

Hamburger said the buckled columns are now capable of carrying only about one-third of the weight they were designed to hold. That means the remaining beams and columns are being forced to shoulder a dangerous amount of extra pressure.

The result is a high-stakes race against time.

Engineers will likely need to install heavy steel brackets and temporary supports beneath the damaged floors in an attempt to re-level the structure and relieve the crushing stress on the sections that have not yet failed.

The buckled columns will also have to be replaced, but crews cannot begin until experts determine whether the tower is stable enough for anyone to enter.

“It should be done rapidly, it can’t be done immediately,” Hamburger said. “Engineers are going to need to go in and assess just how far the damage has progressed.”

He said it may be possible to stabilize the building within a week, but only after a painstaking inspection and emergency repair plan are completed.

The most frightening problem is that the people tasked with saving the tower may have to walk directly into the danger zone.

Emily Guglielmo, a structural engineer and principal at Martin/Martin, said the fastest solution would be to get temporary bracing and shoring inside the building before the damage spreads.

But she warned that sending engineers and workers into the unstable high-rise will be an agonizing “balancing act.”

Officials must decide whether crews can safely enter and install the supports or whether the structure is simply too dangerous to approach.

Engineers will compare the damage with the tower’s original blueprints to determine how it was built and whether construction work may have triggered the alarming failure.

Both Hamburger and Guglielmo said the building will “definitely” need to be at least partially demolished before any serious rebuilding can begin.

Images from inside the tower reportedly show a badly buckled column, visible cracking and floors sagging under the strain.

“The images we have seen show a buckled column, you can see cracking, you can see floors that are sagging,” Guglielmo said. “Those generally are damage that is not reversible.”

In other words, crews cannot simply push the floors back into place and declare the building safe.

“It’s not like we can just push a cracked floor up and it can maintain its capacity,” she said, adding that damaged sections will have to be removed and replaced.

The terrifying failure unfolded at one of the biggest redevelopment projects in New York City.

The former corporate tower is being transformed from offices into roughly 1,600 apartments, a commercial-to-residential conversion expected to be the largest of its kind currently underway in the city.

Panic erupted Tuesday when construction workers noticed two support members bending and beginning to fail on the 21st and 22nd floors, according to the NYPD and FDNY.

Workers rushed out of the building, and everyone escaped safely. No injuries were reported.

Authorities then cleared nine surrounding city blocks and sealed off the area in a massive “frozen zone” as fears mounted that part of the tower could give way.

The dramatic scare also raised fresh questions about the project’s troubled safety history.

A review of Department of Buildings records, 311 complaints and lawsuits filed by former workers found that the construction site had been hit with seven violations between July and December 2025.

Those violations resulted in more than $32,000 in fines.

“This raises some flags,” Hamburger said.

Sources said the instability may be connected to work involving the addition of 11 new floors to the tower.

Experts are now examining several disturbing possibilities.

Hamburger said the failed columns may have been overloaded by unexpected weight somewhere above the 21st floor.

Another possibility is that workers accidentally damaged or removed vital structural components that had been helping keep the columns upright.

“It’s hard to diagnose at this point in time, but it’s very likely that there were heavier loads placed on this column than it was anticipated to support,” Guglielmo said.

She said the wrong-sized structural member may also have been used because of a design or construction error.

“Oftentimes when something as catastrophic as this happens, it’s a combination of a variety of factors,” she said.

The defect may have remained hidden until the tower reached a dangerous tipping point.

“Sometimes it doesn’t show itself immediately,” Guglielmo explained. “It’s only when enough of the building has gone up, or enough loads have been added.”

Now, engineers face a harrowing mission: get inside, stop the damage from spreading and begin dismantling the ruined sections before the battered Midtown tower suffers an even more catastrophic failure.