Midtown building had violations prior to columns buckling: DOB

More about the construction project happening inside that former Pfizer building, including a history of violations. So for more on the violations, let's get right to good days. Jessica Formoso. She joins us with those details. Jessica, what do we know? Good morning to Shawnee and Tina records from the Department of Buildings shows the construction project was slapped with a number of violations last year, racking more than $32,000 in fines. Those violations range from worker safety at the site to glass and metal panels falling onto the sidewalk below. It was two years ago that the plans were filed with the city to convert the former Pfizer headquarters into luxury apartments with more than 1600 units. The building would be expanded, adding 19 stories on top of the existing structure, making it the largest office to residential conversion in the city's history. The developer is Metro lofts. To date, there are six violations from the Department of Buildings. We got a hold of the violations documents from July of 2025 to December of that year. One citation notes that the work going on on site did not follow the plans that were listed in approved construction documents. Then there is this incident where a piece of window glass fell from the eighth floor during an active demo job. In December, a worker fell six ft from a platform ladder because that ladder was not on a flat and level surface. The contractor was cited again for failing to report the injury. Aside from these violations, we also found some complaints from people in the area that they made to D. O. B. One stating quote worker at this building is blowing material off the roof with a leaf blower. Several of these complaints alleged the workers are unlicensed. Those complaints echoed by a union rep who showed up to the site yesterday. They should have used those New York City union iron workers to begin with and guarantee you wouldn't have this problem. And not only did they go non union with the iron workers, they did it with every trade except for the steam fitters doing the sprinkler and the elevator constructors and it's all for profit. A former commissioner for the buildings department tells Fox five it's unusual for a site of that size to have violations issues. The city says there were four inspections at the location so far this year and that none of them found any safety issues. Experts say this will come down to three things. Whether there was something wrong with the original structure itself, failure to carry out the construction work or whether the original plans for converting the building were flawed. Was it designed properly? And the second is, was it implemented with the proper means and methods? And then third, it's possible that there is some latent defect in the building that could have not been foreseen that contributed. There is now an investigation into the whole construction site and its safety enforcement. We have reached out to Metroloft asking about the violations and also the allegations that they used unlicensed and non union workers for this project. We have not heard back, but the developer did speak to the New York Times telling the paper what happened yesterday is quote a typical construction mishap to Shawnee Tina. All right, Jessica, thank you.