A 37-storey Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, the former Pfizer headquarters at 235 East 42nd Street, remains at risk of a partial "pancake"-style collapse, with New York fire officials warning that the unstable structure is still shifting. The building was evacuated during Tuesday's morning rush after construction workers found steel columns buckling inside, and the danger matters because the high-rise sits in a busy commercial district and is one of the largest office-to-residential conversion projects in the United States.

Buckling columns and shifting floors have left the building too dangerous for crews to safely stabilise, and FDNY Chief of Operations John Esposito said it could "possibly" collapse in on itself. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said officials had monitored the structure continuously since the first signs of failure and that movement had not stopped. The crisis has been compounded by allegations from the New York City Department of Buildings that the owner was carrying out construction work beyond approved plans; a complaint was filed on Tuesday as investigators began examining what went wrong.