The Midtown Manhattan high rise that became dangerously unstable last month had more columns that were missing reinforcements than was previously known, according to documents obtained by The New York Times, and reviewed by independent engineers.
The city temporarily shut down the area around the building, the former headquarters of Pfizer on East 42nd Street, because of two columns that buckled on the 21st floor as the structure was being converted to apartments.
But a review of public documents obtained by The Times through a records request to the New York City Department of Buildings shows that steel plates were missing or inadequate on eight more columns that were supposed to be strengthened to support floors being added above.
In the documents, the insufficient reinforcements were referred to as “missing/partial length,” which could include missing plates intended to strengthen steel columns, or smaller plates — called “stiffener plates” — to ensure structural continuity through floors. Plates that were shorter than designed could also have been mistakenly put up.
Repair work to those eight additional columns, according to the drawings, has now been done. Those columns are scattered on the 33rd, 34th and 35th floors. Daniel Linzell, a structural engineer and dean of engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said that the notation in the drawings was clear. In those eight spots, he said, “it is implying that either the entire plate was missing or the plate is not as long as was intended.”
