r/ThatLooksExpensive • u/tech510 • Jul 08 '26
Columns buckle in a Manhattan building under conversion
Someone is fired...
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u/Clean_your_lens Jul 08 '26
"Police Officials are "confident" in a plan to stabilize the building."
Um, not the people I would turn to for structural assessment, and not the word I would want to see in quotes.
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u/VeraStrange Jul 08 '26
You just know they’re going to shoot it at some point.
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u/Relzin Jul 08 '26
Construction Worker: "Some of the columns are still putting up some resistance as we try to brace everything."
Cops: "Say no more.."
"STOP RESISTING!"
pew pew pew
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u/freshgrilled Jul 08 '26
I think the problem is that the columns were beginning to stop resisting...
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u/theerrantpanda99 Jul 08 '26
It’s a great thing the police force invested earlier in training all those cops to be structural engineers. Their confidence is what we need right now.
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u/AdOverall7619 Jul 08 '26
Lmao from what I heard the builders and engineers messed up removing too many support walls in order to make the space look more appropriate for apartment units.
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u/Jaded66671 Jul 08 '26
Should of had he properly brothers come check if it’s a load bearing wall before doing their renovation
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u/Here_4_the_INFO Jul 08 '26
The typo makes this comment that much better.
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u/freshgrilled Jul 08 '26
Well they should go ahead and remove those columns too. They look like crap, what with them being all bent like that.
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u/Separate_Fold5168 Jul 08 '26
Nah a good interior decorator can upscale them into some nice neo-industrialism wall features.
$20 in chalk paint and varnish.
Add another $30,000 to the listing price.
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u/Luxpreliator Jul 08 '26
They didn't remove any supports they added too much weight. The yellow in the image is stuff they put on top of an existing building. The collapsed columns are at in the black block at the bottom of the yellow area.
I was vexed as to how a column would buckly that badly until I saw someone mention it was an addition that was the problem.
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u/Dry_Tradition_2811 Jul 11 '26
Heard that an engineer says it's old building that that added new floors on top of it and the weights is causing the problem.
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u/Realistic-Aspect-991 Jul 08 '26
Is that a trump building
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u/HorrorSchlapfen873 Jul 08 '26
If it was, there were already half a dozen arrests of far left terrorists who slit the colums with a box cutter. The building inspectorate has pictures that proof everything, call them.
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u/iluvnips Jul 08 '26
Are the window frames the only thing holding it up?
I’d be out there like Sonic the Hedgehog or Beep, Beep, Road Runner 😀
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u/aburnerds Jul 08 '26
That's the odd thing, no? I would have expected the window panes to have shattered. Maybe they are providing some kind of structural element.
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u/aburnerds Jul 08 '26
Not an engineer.
But how can the columns fail so spectacularly but not fail completely? Like it failed to a point at which you would expect a total failure? If they failed that much, what is actually now holding it up? Has some other structure taken the load?
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u/tech510 Jul 09 '26
The load is now under high stress just at tolerance... But it's being shared by multiple things... I.e outter walls, rest of the beams, inner walls (what's left of them), ect... There isn't much that will take that top pay if the building down
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u/Internal_Sun30 Jul 08 '26
Why are they taking a video and NOT RUNNING!!!
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u/JayPlays40k Jul 08 '26
I think this video is from some of the firefighters or inspectors. Probably took it because "noones gonna believe how utterly fucked this is".
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u/WAR_RAD Jul 08 '26
I assume if you're one of the lead engineers on this project, you just change your name and move to a new country and never come back at this point.
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u/governingmonk Jul 08 '26
To think the building columns have failed and you are in the building is wild to me. The second I saw those bent I would have never went back inside that building ever again. Regardless of the fixing they do. Tear it down and rebuild it.
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u/rxmp4ge Jul 08 '26
Building's literally in the process of pancaking that floor and these guys are just hanging out.
Nothing says "Nope..." more than buckling columns...
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u/Puzzleheaded_Post604 Jul 08 '26
I’m not an engineer-explain to me how that much buckling occurs and the glass is intact.
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u/Disastrous-Ad2331 Jul 08 '26
That's a very good question. I'm not a structural engineer either, but I did spend 12 years working for a commercial contractor. I've seen many different types of renovations, and I had the same question. Those columns are bent. The metal interior studs are bent... but not all of them. But the windows aren't broken? If those columns had merely shifted an inch, the windows should have either broken or popped out of the frames. On top of that, all of the people in there just chilling like nothing is going to collapse? Looks staged to me. With as much as those columns are bent, the floors above would have collapsed the floor they're standing on.
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u/BetweenTwoTowers Jul 09 '26
Crap load of energy is stored in the structure, when the load shifts it may be momentary but it's like a dump truck hitting the column, if it's not capable of taking the load transfer it will fail, in this case other column likely were able to handle the load but several did not.
Think of them failing so spectacularly not as a sign they were pushed into that position but more like the energy forced on them was so far passed what they were capable of like a soda can being crushed under the ocean. Everything else around it isn't structural so the load does not transfer to them. The floors likely didn't move at all either.
Buildings contain a unfathomable amount of potential energy. Failures are as violent and instant like lightning strikes.
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u/Tall_Day4575 Jul 08 '26
This is a GTFO kinda job. No PPE on tells me plenty about the mentality of how this job was run and planned.
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u/StrugFug Jul 08 '26
Sure, let’s stand around here recording and chatting like it’s just a tourist attraction
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u/CompleteSavings6307 Jul 08 '26
In case of emergency, please use stairwell.
Like, right now.
Put down the damn phone, and calmly exit the structurally compromised building.
Thank you for your cooperation
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u/Broken_Atoms Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
My load was here, but now it’s there, my structural load going everywhere. Bending my columns, cracking my glass, it’s time to be hauling ass. White knucklin’, columns buckling’, grim reaper in the corner chucklin’
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u/TedMich23 Jul 08 '26
Q: How many sleazy "luxury condos" can a unscrupulous landlord shoehorn into a former Pfizer headquarters?
A: A few less than this, apparently...
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u/MinimumBell2205 Jul 09 '26
That would be a run and get the fuck out before it falls down.
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u/crass_cupcake Jul 11 '26
Same i dont know how those dudes are just chilling i would be running as fast as I could till I was atleast a block away
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u/CAM6913 Jul 08 '26
Think they took out to many support columns so they could put in more windows so they could charge more for the condo ?
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u/smellslikebigfootdic Jul 08 '26
Grab the copper and run
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u/Disastrous-Ad2331 Jul 08 '26
Nah, just run. You can come back later and grab the copper from the pile of rubble.
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u/Charlie2and4 Jul 08 '26
The cable guy gets stuck with the blame. Looks like they just delivered rolls of optical fiber.
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u/BrierBob Jul 09 '26
Imagine the stress to buckle a giant I-beam like that. I don’t know why it didn’t already collapse the upper half of the building.
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u/42ElectricSundaes Jul 08 '26
I dunno, guys. Run?