Falling bricks and buckling columns at a Manhattan high rise force evacuations

NEW YORK (AP) — Reports of falling bricks and buckling columns have prompted evacuations in the area around a Midtown Manhattan high-rise office building that was being converted to luxury apartments, fire officials said Tuesday.

Among the evacuated buildings was a school with about 400 children, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said. There were no reported injuries and all workers inside the building were accounted for, he said.

The New York Fire Department said it received reports of bricks falling at around 8 a.m. from the 38-story tower. Officials arriving at the scene found two columns had buckled on the 21st and 22nd floors and that floors were sagging between the 21st and 26th floors.

The building, the former global headquarters of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, is located in a busy corridor of midtown about a block from the landmark Chrysler Building and between Grand Central Terminal and the United Nations headquarters.

The city building department said its inspectors and engineers were also on the scene at 235 East 42nd Street.

“Most of 42nd Street and 43rd Street between 1st and 3rd Aves have been shut down to pedestrians and to vehicles,” the mayor added, “and all of this is a reflection of the fact that our top priority right now is the safety of those who live in this area and the safety of those who work in this area.”

Asked whether the building was actually at risk of collapse, Mamdani said first responders have found “structural issues with the building” and “beyond that just for those in the immediate area to follow the instructions of those on the ground.”

The project has been billed as the largest office-to-residential conversion in the city’s history, according to Gensler, the architectural firm leading the project, which aims to transform a pair of 1970s-era office buildings into a massive new apartment complex with more than 1,600 units.

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Izaguirre reported from Lindenhurst, New York.