NEW YORK | 235 East 42nd Street (fmr. Pfizer HQ) | FT | FLOORS

[Arik]

So they added more floors that the building can’t support?

[stache]

235 east 42nd. Odd that there would be this weakness in the mid part of the building.

[SideStreet]

from Reddit.

edit: apparently the buckled columns (x2) and sagging floors are on the 21st to 22nd floors. Not good; this could put a damper on conversations which the city needs more of not less.

Edit 2: there was a second buckled column, and apparently a column on the 21st floor was reported as ‘compromised’ by a site safety manager at some point.

[rbrosenk]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-07/building-in-midtown-manhattan-evacuated-on-collapse-fears?utm_source=website&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=copy

[TKDV]

Not surprised the buckling is happening in the main tower on a floor that was already existing.

[Waymond_Womano]

hey, if it collapses this is the perfect site for a…

@007

SUPERTALL!

[YIMHudson]

traffic has been banned between 1st and 3rd Avenues from 40th to 45th street. That’s a good chunk of Midtown.

[bkhights]

There is still movement - the building remains unstable. Very, very bad.

[YIMHudson]

well there’s your problem

FDNY

[lowkeylion]

Let’s hope it has to be completely demolished, nobody is hurt, and a magnificent supertall rises in its place.

[s2000]

There is no saving this building

[Waymond_Womano]

Oh boy:

@Waymond_Womano

They went from “real estate listing” to “the real estate is listing”

[SMCYB]

There’s a live webcam on it.
(I hope nothing happens.)

New York City

[TKDV]

You can really see how much the corner addition is sagging.

[the726]

Here’s another view I found on Twitter.

[yesinmybackyard]

looking at that last pic, it’s toast

[TK2000]

There’s no way that happened in just a day. How is this just now being noticed?

[TKDV]

Structural failure is more often than not to occur in a short span of time (Sampoong Dept Store, WTC, Hyatt Regency Walkway), the instance here is very plausible to have occurred in a short span of time, its just not considered complete failure. If the columns completely sheared, then there would be complete failure because the loads would no longer have a uniform path downward and the original structure of the building would need to take on the additional load.

There are some interview of workers that have said that the columns just started to buckle and thats when everyone was told to evacuate. If this buckling had happened over several days, they wouldn’t have only now caused a panic. Thats not to say though that the columns were not extremely stressed for a while now.

[007]

Let’s hope for another tower.

in the perfect location.

[stache]

They will probably just have to tear out the addition and possibly replace it.