Structural Engineers Outline Complex Safety Steps Needed to Save Damaged Manhattan Skyscraper
CEE Interim Dean Jerome F. Hajjar and Professor Mehrdad Sasani are weighing in on the highly unusual buckling of a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, explaining how complex building systems redistribute weight during localized structural failures. The faculty experts emphasize that extensive temporary shoring, load-redistribution analysis, and continuous sensor monitoring will be required by engineers to safely rehabilitate the structure.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Tanner Stening. Main photo: A construction worker looks at a buckled support beam inside 235 East 42nd Street, Wednesday, July 8, 2026, in New York. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
Can the buckling Manhattan skyscraper be saved? Engineers weigh in
As officials continue to investigate the cause, experts say that if the conversion is to proceed, “extensive work” would need to be done to shore up the damage and evaluate the building’s safety and integrity.
Extensive work will need to be done to fortify a 37-floor skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan in which several columns suddenly began buckling this week, prompting an emergency evacuation of nearby offices and street closures.
The building is undergoing renovations, cited as the largest ever office-to-residence conversion in Manhattan. Structural engineering experts said for the project to proceed the building would need comprehensive work to shore up the damage and evaluate the safety and integrity of the skyscraper.
“This sort of failure is highly unusual,” said Jerome F. Hajjar, who is a university distinguished professor and the CDM Smith Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
“We have a lot of steps in our processes that typically prevent this from happening,” Hajjar said, citing the national standards that guide the structural calculations that planners are expected to undertake. One example is the American Society of Civil Engineers’ standard for determining the loads buildings must be designed to withstand, or ASCE/SEI 7.
Located on East 42nd Street, the building, once part of pharmaceutical and biotechnology giant Pfizer’s global headquarters, is in the process of being converted from offices into apartments. On Tuesday, officials ordered an evacuation of the surrounding blocks after responding to a structural issue that they said could lead to a partial collapse of the building.
During a press conference that same day, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that officials arriving at the scene reported structural issues on the 21st floor, including that “two structural columns had buckled, in addition to multiple cracks and sagging floors.” Ahmed Tigani, the city’s building commissioner, said the building had been stabilized later in the day as emergency repairs commenced.
The renovation involved enlarging the former Pfizer headquarters, widening its upper floors to create more than 1,500 planned apartments. The developer told the Wall Street Journal that the work may have imposed additional weight on two columns on the 21st floor, which may not have been adequately reinforced.
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Structural engineering experts say that if the conversion is to proceed, “extensive work” would need to be done to shore up the damage and evaluate the building’s safety and integrity.
Photos by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
But just why the damage impacted only those two columns remains unclear.
The range of potential causes is wide, Hajjar said. It could stem from an issue dating back to the building’s original construction that only became apparent during the renovation. It is possible, he said, that discrepancies between the building as constructed and its original design plans meant parts of the structure were less capable of supporting the additional loads imposed during the renovation.
“It’s really hard to say what causes something like this, and often it’s a combination of things that lead to it,” he said.
Mehrdad Sasani, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University, agreed that such problems are “usually multifaceted.”
Read full story at Northeastern Global News