Former Pfizer erection goes floppy
Discussion
What used to be the Pfizer offices in New York - currently being converted into 1600 apartments including extra floors being added - has had some of the steel frame yield under load and isn't quite as vertical as it was.
They don't expect a total collapse as it's steel framed but it's 37 storeys and both 17th and 21 floors had failures.
There's a bit of video from inside; personally if I was in a tower and saw buckled steel columns and the ceiling had dropped by enough to fold the stud walls I'd be leaving not filming!
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/live-news/ny...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/07/07/wat...
They don't expect a total collapse as it's steel framed but it's 37 storeys and both 17th and 21 floors had failures.
There's a bit of video from inside; personally if I was in a tower and saw buckled steel columns and the ceiling had dropped by enough to fold the stud walls I'd be leaving not filming!
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/live-news/ny...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/07/07/wat...
Lotobear said:
...structural engineers frantically digging out their PI
Top bod at the developer has been busy flapping his gums about events, I'm sure his lawyers were screaming for someone to shut him up.Not sure what their options are for fixing it as opposed to just temporarily stabilising it, I'm assuming it's f
ked and they'll have to at least partially demolish as I don't see that it's practical to jack it back up and replace the failed frame? Even if they can fix it who'd trust it for living in?
Cut from an item in the above link,
"The Midtown Manhattan building that suffered structural damage Tuesday experienced “nothing more than a typical construction mishap,” MetroLoft developer Nathan Berman told The New York Times.
“It happens unfortunately far too often on construction sites: falling cranes, people — God forbid — falling off buildings, windows falling out,” Berman, MetroLoft’s managing principal and founder, told the Times."
Great H&S culture there.
"The Midtown Manhattan building that suffered structural damage Tuesday experienced “nothing more than a typical construction mishap,” MetroLoft developer Nathan Berman told The New York Times.
“It happens unfortunately far too often on construction sites: falling cranes, people — God forbid — falling off buildings, windows falling out,” Berman, MetroLoft’s managing principal and founder, told the Times."
Great H&S culture there.
55palfers said:
Cut from an item in the above link,
"The Midtown Manhattan building that suffered structural damage Tuesday experienced nothing more than a typical construction mishap, MetroLoft developer Nathan Berman told The New York Times.
It happens unfortunately far too often on construction sites: falling cranes, people God forbid falling off buildings, windows falling out, Berman, MetroLoft s managing principal and founder, told the Times."
Great H&S culture there.
"The Midtown Manhattan building that suffered structural damage Tuesday experienced nothing more than a typical construction mishap, MetroLoft developer Nathan Berman told The New York Times.
It happens unfortunately far too often on construction sites: falling cranes, people God forbid falling off buildings, windows falling out, Berman, MetroLoft s managing principal and founder, told the Times."
Great H&S culture there.
55palfers said:
Cut from an item in the above link,
"The Midtown Manhattan building that suffered structural damage Tuesday experienced nothing more than a typical construction mishap, MetroLoft developer Nathan Berman told The New York Times.
It happens unfortunately far too often on construction sites: falling cranes, people God forbid falling off buildings, windows falling out, Berman, MetroLoft s managing principal and founder, told the Times."
Great H&S culture there.
I thought “I don’t know that a four-inch sag is a collapse.” was another good one. "The Midtown Manhattan building that suffered structural damage Tuesday experienced nothing more than a typical construction mishap, MetroLoft developer Nathan Berman told The New York Times.
It happens unfortunately far too often on construction sites: falling cranes, people God forbid falling off buildings, windows falling out, Berman, MetroLoft s managing principal and founder, told the Times."
Great H&S culture there.
Or saying stuff like “This additional load that we put on those floors caused those two particular columns to collapse,” while at other times saying the design and engineering was "perfect".
The guy seems a bit too stupid to just keep his mouth shut. Not a unique trait among New York property developers...
55palfers said:
Cut from an item in the above link,
"The Midtown Manhattan building that suffered structural damage Tuesday experienced nothing more than a typical construction mishap, MetroLoft developer Nathan Berman told The New York Times.
It happens unfortunately far too often on construction sites: falling cranes, people God forbid falling off buildings, windows falling out, Berman, MetroLoft s managing principal and founder, told the Times."
Great H&S culture there.
Reminded me of this story from a few days ago https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1ey1nw4wdxo"The Midtown Manhattan building that suffered structural damage Tuesday experienced nothing more than a typical construction mishap, MetroLoft developer Nathan Berman told The New York Times.
It happens unfortunately far too often on construction sites: falling cranes, people God forbid falling off buildings, windows falling out, Berman, MetroLoft s managing principal and founder, told the Times."
Great H&S culture there.
I mean who’d have guessed that fitting outward opening windows on a high building might make them vulnerable to being caught by a gust of wind? Clearly not Norman Foster or his firm.
I wonder if those big water tanks they've added on top of the new top storeys on the existing tower were the issue? They'll be really heavy vs anything else they might have done, and if they'd filled them it might start showing up issues they didn't have earlier.
It's always going to be dodgy retrofitting a new structure on top of an existing one, you're putting a lot of faith into the original design and into an implementation of it that you can't necessarily verify, and (depending on how they did the new work) consuming design margins that may or may not exist.
If you take an intact steel frame to the point that it buckles you've really fked up. Hope there's enough margin left in the rest of it as you'd expect if some starts to yield the rest probably isn't that far behind.
It's always going to be dodgy retrofitting a new structure on top of an existing one, you're putting a lot of faith into the original design and into an implementation of it that you can't necessarily verify, and (depending on how they did the new work) consuming design margins that may or may not exist.
If you take an intact steel frame to the point that it buckles you've really f
ked up. Hope there's enough margin left in the rest of it as you'd expect if some starts to yield the rest probably isn't that far behind. 98elise said:
normalbloke said:
It s amazing this stuff still happens
Agreed. We shouldn't be fking up major engineering projects in 2026.k-up shouldn't have happened, but the idea that we already know everything there is to know about building stuff so shouldn't make mistakes is just wrong. Engineers are developing new materials and techniques all the time, and sometimes there is a learning curve to them. boyse7en said:
98elise said:
normalbloke said:
It s amazing this stuff still happens
Agreed. We shouldn't be fking up major engineering projects in 2026.k-up shouldn't have happened, but the idea that we already know everything there is to know about building stuff so shouldn't make mistakes is just wrong. Engineers are developing new materials and techniques all the time, and sometimes there is a learning curve to them. Millennium Tower in San Francisco is another classic tale of how to badly cock up structural basics.
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