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‘Buckling' beams at Manhattan high-rise under construction trigger mass evacuation
(www.nbcnewyork.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2026
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Not to defend developers, but to everyone bringing up cheap materials and assuming the developers were hoping to duck out before issues arose, if you read the article you'll see the building was a preexisting office building being converted to residential units. Not a new build.
The current renovations likely removed some needed support and the remaining structure couldn't handle it. Mistake (engineering calculation) or greed (removing more than stated to include more units) are both possible.
You’re the best, thanks. I suspect a lot of us don’t read the actual article and then comment without all the info.
Ya, converting an office building to residential is a massive undertaking, looks like some calculations were missed, or the building had preexisting issues.
Per NYCBC (up until maybe soon), you have to provide window access to a various list of rooms, which is why residential skyscrapers are usually shaped differently than commercial skyscrapers. To make it fit code, they would have needed to remove beams and columns to fit in the required air shaft which would provide the windows needed.
A few things that could have gone wrong off the top of my head but is not a complete list:
The demolition procedure had issues/wasn't followed. That should include allowed construction loads on each floor. That only one floor saw buckling could be a sign that it was overloaded with debris.
Someone messed up the calculations. The two possible issues could have been either that the slenderness of some elements were miscalculated or there was a major storm that hit the area recently, and the building in the condition it was in didn't have the necessary lateral resistance it needed.
That said, neither the developer or the contractor would have a vested interest in removing more than the bare minimum allowed. And, while steel is recyclable, it is usually far cheaper to leave it in place