Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll look at how city records show a history of construction violations by the company that inspected the buckling former Pfizer building.
Midtown has been buzzing since some columns inside the building on East 42nd Street buckled Tuesday morning. The city anxiously watched as several nearby buildings were forced to evacuate, disrupting workplaces and closing off a vital thoroughfare, as investigators began looking for answers. For now, city officials say the building is stable, and workers are continuing to shore it up. The building, which used to house the Pfizer headquarters, is being converted into residential apartments, with over 1,600 units, a rooftop pool, shops and a fitness center, and was expected to be finished early next year. But the disruption has placed scrutiny on the future of office-to-residential conversions as a solution to the city’s crippling housing shortage. It has also put a spotlight on the companies involved with the conversion, as my colleagues Stefanos Chen, Dionne Searcey, Asmaa Elkeurti and Mihir Zaveri reported. They found a history of a company hired to inspect the building breaking city construction rules. MetroLoft, a developer of the project, hired Domani Inspection Services as a so-called special inspection agency. Such firms are supposed to ensure that specific tasks performed by individual workers are done properly — and sign and stamp technical reports attesting as much. The city requires their approval before deeming large projects completed. Domani certified the safety of the building’s high-strength bolting, steel welding and the structural stability of changes being made as part of the conversion. It’s not clear whether any of the work inspected by Domani contributed to the failure of columns on the 21st floor of the building. But, after interviewing engineering experts and scouring city documents, my colleagues found that the company was accused of violating rules as recently as 2022. From 2012 to 2017, the New York City Department of Buildings accused Domani three times of violations, including conducting unlicensed concrete testing and failing to report a facade collapse. Two cases were dismissed, while a third resulted in a fine of $1,000, records show. Domani was accused of failing to perform inspection duties in 2019 after a six-foot section of concrete wall broke loose from the 25th floor of a building on the Upper East Side. A spokesperson for Domani declined to comment on this incident, citing ongoing litigation. John McMonagle, whom city officials identified as “the director” of Domani, is listed as the private inspector on several projects. The city fined him $12,500 in 2022 for making a false statement during an inspection of a property in Manhattan. A spokeswoman for Domani said the company had no record of the violation. Records list Mr. McMonagle as having performed numerous inspections for the evacuated building in Midtown. In a statement issued by the Domani spokeswoman, Mr. McMonagle said the firm was still reviewing records related to that building’s conversion. He added that it would be “inappropriate to speculate” on the cause of the incident or whether “any inspection issue contributed to it.” “Domani has performed tens of thousands of special inspections throughout New York City over many years, and we take our professional and regulatory responsibilities extremely seriously,” he said. WEATHER Partly sunny skies are expected with temperatures near 89. There’s a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a low around 72. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until July 23 (Tisha B’Av). QUOTE OF THE DAY “It felt like working with the ‘check engine’ light on.” — Dejae Doakes, an employee at FancyFree, a sports bar in Brooklyn that has been hosting World Cup watch parties daily since June 11. The latest Metro news
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Dear Diary: Shortly after my wife, Dawn, and I moved to New York, we attended a summer screening of “The Sound of Music” on the Bryant Park lawn. As newcomers, we hadn’t yet learned the delicate etiquette of claiming space with a blanket and how to save enough room for yourself without appearing to annex part of Manhattan. The veteran New Yorkers around us seemed to know exactly where that line was and weren’t shy about pointing out when others crossed it. Then the movie began. We had rightly anticipated that the audience would come to life with a singalong of each familiar song. What we didn’t expect was how vocal everyone around us would be when the Baroness appeared on the screen. Each time, a chorus of hisses rose from the crowd. It was our first summer in New York, and in a single evening we learned two things: New Yorkers have strong opinions, and they don’t keep them to themselves. — Pat Kiernan Mr. Kiernan has been an anchor of the morning news show on Spectrum News NY1 since 1997. Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. Davaughnia Wilson, Andy Chen and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
