"Two structural support beams on the 21st floor of a 38-story under-construction building in Manhattan started buckling Tuesday morning, triggering a mass evacuation, street closures and a large emergency response, officials say.

The FDNY said it got a call around 8 a.m. about bricks falling from the building at 235 East 42nd Street, between Second and Third avenues. The NYPD says it got a 911 call about the incident less than 15 minutes later.

When cops got to the scene, the NYPD says officers were told that construction workers on the 21st floor of the commercial building saw the columns beginning to collapse."

More at the link:


Link

I used to work across the street from that building at 220 E 42nd st. in the News Building.

Aint that some third world shit

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
Aint that some third world shit

My thoughts exactly.



.

Were the beams defective or the workmanship?

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:
Were the beams defective or the workmanship?

Workers are claiming there was no shoring put into place in a cost-cutting effort, naturally accusations of union versus non-union hiring are being thrown around; the project is a renovation from offices (Pfizer) to residential which included adding floors.

Go to 8:30 for details

So much for converting offices into condos or apartments.

Hopefully not another Surfside condo collapse.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...condominium_collapse

I’m sure when the socialists get more control, these kinds of problems will disappear… right?

Skyscrapers are designed from the top down. If they are adding 6-10 stories to the building, I’m questioning if the contractor reinforced the existing skeleton to withstand the extra weight added to the top. Looking at the pic of the bent columns, doesn’t look like it.

If that is the reason for the failure, there is a ton of common sense missing from that job site.

quote:

Originally posted by ugeesta:
Skyscrapers are designed from the top down. If they are adding 6-10 stories to the building, I’m questioning if the contractor reinforced the existing skeleton to withstand the extra weight added to the top. Looking at the pic of the bent columns, doesn’t look like it.

If that is the reason for the failure, there is a ton of common sense missing from that job site.

One of the interviewees in Corsair's video said they were adding 16 stories. NYT said 11 stories are being added.

I think part of the confusion is they're adding 21 stores to the adjacent 10 story 219 East 42nd.

It's actually eerily similar to the Hard Rock Hotel collapse in New Orleans.

It goes residential because they don’t want to spend any money on it. In my home town about half of a 5-6 story late 19 century building collapsed midway through a conversion to residential. Just months away from being occupied.

So what do you think rent rates will be now?

The WSJ story sounds way too simple and some incredibly poor basic engineering failures involved.
Who would guess that adding several floors during a remodel would add weight?

sounds like plain old fashioned corruption to me, to make big money by cutting big corners.

Surfside happened from YEARS of neglect.

There was a lot of that around Miami Beach. Very few buildings had the proper reserves and the boards would defer maintenance/not want to levy assessments to pay for repairs and proper inspections etc.

(I know of one building in Miami Beach where I could be comfortable investing long term. That’s getting better as they work through backlogs of buildings which have refused to pay for inspections/been paying fines instead of paying for remedies etc.)

I’m sure that building in NYC will be “saved” and my gut says it will constantly have issues and should probably come down.

I realize others know far more than I/aren’t working off memories of a statics class 30 years ago - but I think by the time girders are failing, lots/all of the others have been stressed quite a bit.

The reporter in corsair's post stated these beams were 'iron' beams. Now, I'll presume she knows nothing about what she is talking about and that the beams are really made of steel. Maybe Chinese steel?

^^^ Yeah, the use of the word iron often pisses me off. People really don't know and if they did, they'd realize just how ridiculous and incorrect it is.

Chinese steel? Good question!