Some evacuation orders and street closures remain as work continues on a NYC high-rise that buckled – AP News
Crews worked through the night to shore up a massive, under-construction apartment building in Manhattan after columns buckled and floors sagged, triggering widespread evacuations and street closures over concerns about a collapse.
NEW YORK (AP) — The streets around a midtown Manhattan high-rise where buckled columns forced evacuations gradually returned to life Wednesday, as roads reopened, residents and hotel guests were allowed back into nearby buildings, and workers shored up the damage.
After crews worked through the night to stabilize a section of the building where beams had buckled and floors had sagged, Mayor Zohran Mamdani sought to reassure wary New Yorkers, saying no more movement had been detected in the massive office-to-apartment conversion project at Pfizer’s former headquarters near Grand Central Terminal.
But several other nearby buildings remained off-limits, and the city will conduct a broader inquiry into what went wrong and what can be done to prevent a more devastating development such as a collapse, the mayor vowed.
“As soon as we answer the emergency questions around safety in this moment, we are going to be conducting a full investigation as to how we got to this point,” Mamdani said. “Because this is not a necessary consequence of an office to residential conversion. This, however, is clearly a breakdown in that process.”
