A sweeping review of 180 construction sites across New York City involving firms connected to the redevelopment of a Midtown high-rise that became dangerously unstable found dozens of violations, though none posed an immediate danger to the public, city officials said.
Inspectors also shut down some work at several of the sites.
The findings were released in an email on Tuesday, as part of the city’s continuing response to the Midtown building where columns buckled on July 7 at 235 East 42nd Street, a high-profile conversion of the former Pfizer headquarters to apartments.
Andrew Rudansky, a spokesman with the Buildings Department, said the agency had issued more than 60 violations and had fully or partially shut down work at 19 sites. He said that most of the violations had been issued “for site safety issues that posed a hazard to the workers on site, failing to follow the design drawings and plans, or for administrative issues.”
Each of the 180 sites targeted in the review was associated with a developer of the Midtown project, MetroLoft; two subcontractors, Barone Steel and Northeast Specialist Group; or a third-party inspection firm, Domani Inspection Services, that was supposed to be overseeing structural work.
Only 24 of the 180 sites were office-to-residential conversion projects. The others included a new three-story development in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; a six-story apartment complex in Lower Manhattan; and a 36-story residential tower in Chelsea near the High Line.
Mr. Rudansky said inspectors “did not find any hazardous structural issues that posed an imminent danger to public safety during this sweep.”
A spokesman for MetroLoft declined to comment. Northeast, Barone and Domani did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Among the problems discovered in the review:
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The construction of a 20-story residential building in Gramercy Park involving concrete work on the third floor did not align with the project plans;
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A wall made of masonry on the roof of a new two-story building in Queens was temporarily being braced by wood and rebar without engineering plans;
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Construction work was being performed on a Saturday without a special allowance to work on the weekend.
A spokesman for Mayor Zohran Mamdani referred questions about the review to the Buildings Department.
The episode at the old Pfizer building last month involved the buckling of two steel columns on the 21st floor, prompting the evacuation of thousands and sending construction crews and city officials scrambling to stabilize the building. An analysis by The New York Times of publicly available engineering plans and photographs of the building showed that the columns appeared not to be properly reinforced.
The city is continuing its investigation into what went wrong.
But the episode has raised questions about the safety of other conversion projects.
City leaders have repeatedly sought to quell those concerns, and Mr. Rudansky said on Tuesday that there was “no evidence to suggest that the structural failing at 235 East 42nd Street is in any way inherent to office-to-residential conversion projects.”
An investigation by The Times found that several firms, including MetroLoft and Domani, had brushes with the Buildings Department in the past.
The investigation into the columns’ failure at the Pfizer building will involve “a massive review of construction documents and reports held by the developer and construction team, interviews with witnesses and responsible parties, a hands-on sweep of the entire construction site and review of available video and photo evidence,” according to the Buildings Department.
City inspectors had previously moved to fully or partially shut down work at three other conversion projects. Mr. Rudansky said none of those were connected to the review.
One was at 222 Broadway, a 30-plus-story office building being converted to luxury housing in Lower Manhattan, over issues with a horizontal concrete beam on the roof that had cracked and been repaired. The Buildings Department had conducted an inspection based on a tip, and work remained on hold there on Tuesday.
After conducting a routine inspection, the department also partially shut down work at 77 Water Street over issues it found during an inspection on July 11, including equipment that was being used without proper certification. Work was allowed to resume a few days later.
Some steel work at another high-rise conversion project at 750 Third Avenue also remains on hold. That followed another routine inspection.
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