A construction worker offered a rare look inside the alleged near-collapse of 235 East 42nd Street and compared the issue to conditions he’d noticed when the twin towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.
The structural emergency at the Gensler Building involved two load-bearing steel columns on the skyscraper’s 21st floor that allegedly buckled.
“We do all the power generation,” Steamfitters Local 638 business agent Cliff Johnsen told The Epoch Times’ sister media NTD. “We do all the water waste treatment. We do all the infrastructure in New York. I’ve never seen steel columns bend. The only time I saw that was on 9/11 and that’s scary to me.”
Johnsen was flanked by Steamfitters Local 638 president Brian Hunt, Steamfitters Local 638 political director Brett Thomason, and Steamfitters Local 638 shop steward Sean Dow, who was dubbed the 42nd Street Hero for identifying the defects and calling for an evacuation of construction crews.
The four men were among the speakers who attended a July 9 press conference across the street from the Gensler Building where they commented on the near catastrophe.
“It could be an installation issue or an engineering issue,” Johnsen said. “Time will tell what it is. I can’t tell you but there’s gaps and that shouldn’t happen.”
The Gensler Building is the former Pfizer headquarters. Once completed in 2027, it will be the city’s largest office building to be converted into a residence with 1,600 luxury rental apartments, according to the Metro Loft website.
Hunt warned New York City tenants and buyers that they should investigate who built their skyscrapers before buying or renting.
“Do your due diligence of who built what and how it was built, and was it built right, or that could be what you’re living in,” Hunt said as he pointed to the Gensler Building.
The incident became public during the morning rush hour on July 7, when the New York City Fire Department arrived to investigate.
As a result, officials shut down several blocks of Midtown Manhattan.
The evacuation zone encompassed nine surrounding buildings, including Hampton Inn, the Israeli consulate, and a nearby school with the capacity for 400 students.
“I’m going to comment on me being down here when the New York City Fire Department and the New York Police Department got here,” Johnsen said. “There’s nobody better than them and it was impressive.”
While Johnsen said he hopes there will be more enforcement on private construction going forward, he stopped short of blaming the city of New York.
The city of New York did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
“We would like the city to understand the training and the safety that goes into being in a union trade,” Johnsen added.
Metro Loft is one of the developers of the property. It did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
The situation affected less than 30 apartments out of more than 1,600 and at no time was the building, or any portion of it, at risk of collapse, according to Metro Loft company leaders who commented on social media.
“We have been working closely with the Department of Buildings (DOB) to rectify the situation,” Metro Loft said in a July 8 statement posted on X. “Our team worked through the night stabilizing the affected columns, and the DOB has confirmed the structure is now stable. As a result, the evacuation zone has been significantly reduced.”
Only 10 union members were working inside the building on fire, sprinklers, and safety, according to Thomason, who said most of the employed workers on the project were non-union.
“The majority of that building was being built by a workforce that was not qualified and trained and given the proper safety training to be on the job that they were on,” Thomason added.
