City buildings department officials are confident the buckling Midtown high-rise at risk of collapse is “stabilizing” after emergency crews worked overnight to shore up the structure.
Workers were able to successfully shore up the under-construction 37-story former Pfizer headquarters on East 42nd Street near Second Avenue — enough to shrink the evacuated “frozen zone” to a few surrounding blocks, Department of Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said.
“We are feeling confident that many of the emergency shoring measures that have been put in place as a result of extensive discussions with the building owner, the contractor, their licensed professional, is stabilizing the situation,” Tigani told reporters at a press conference Tuesday night.
The “shifting” skyscraper — which is being converted from commercial to residential use — was dramatically evacuated during the morning rush along with eight surrounding buildings as nine blocks were closed down and city officials mounted a desperate effort to avert catastrophe.
A third-party engineer has been brought in to “verify and act as another set of eyes” to ensure it was safe for emergency crews to come onto the impacted floors where beams were “bending like cigarattes” and install the emergency shoring measures — including emergency struts or jacks to hold up and stabilize the weak points of the crumbling building.
Emergency shoring is a temporary measure implemeted to stabilize the buckling building while investigators and contractors work out a long-term solution to prevent the building from further collapsing, Tigani added.
New steel has also been installed to create “stability and [allow] workers and the materials to move into place and keep the building in a stable situation,” the commissioner said.
Movement of the former-Pfizer headquarters has been monitored from both inside and outside the building throughout Tuesday and investigators have not noticed any new movement as of Tuesday evening.
“If there is any movement…we have protocols in place to make sure we’re quickly removing people outside the building to evaluate and reassess,” Tigani said.
“But right now, we have been in a stable and safe situation,” he said Tuesday night.
A partial evacuation order has been lifted from several blocks — with only East 42nd and East 43rd Streets between Second and Third Avenues currently restricted to vehicular traffic.
Any other traffic and pedestrian restrictions in the previously frozen zone have been lifted, the commissioner added.
Traffic will return to Second and Third Avenues first and DOB personnel will be on the ground to manage the situation, Commissioner Tigani said.
The only buildings still under a full evacuation order are 815 Second Ave., 235 East 43rd St., 321 E 43rd St., and 225 East 43rd St.
A building at 217 East 43rd St. is currently under a partial evacuation order for the ground-floor restaurant, but residential floors were able to be re-occupied this evening.
Any other building given a full evacuation order earlier Tuesday can be re-occupied.
While he was unable to provide an exact timeline when the situation is fully stabilized, Commissioner Tigani assured New Yorkers that the city is working “tremendously hard to ensure they are safe and that they can travel through their neighborhood in a safe way.”
“We don’t see any further movement, and we feel confident in this — [it’s the] reason why we’re shrinking the frozen zone, that we’re in a situation where it is safe to continue going to those areas that we have pulled back, and that we’ve reopened to the public,” he concluded.
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