The conversion of the former 37-story Pfizer headquarters used almost no organized labor. The one union trade that was there — the steamfitters — says Nathan Berman's MetroLoft skimped on steel. Berman calls that "total nonsense." Either way, 1,600 planned apartments are now in doubt.

The 37-story former Pfizer headquarters at 235 East 42nd Street — a 1960s tower designed by the Emery Roth firm, converted beginning in 2024 by Nathan Berman's MetroLoft Management into a planned 1,600-unit mixed-use complex — was stabilized by Wednesday morning after steel support columns on the 21st floor began to buckle July 7. But the structural crisis has opened a parallel labor dispute that cuts directly to why the columns gave way.

According to reporting by D.T. Max in The New Yorker, the MetroLoft project ran with almost no organized labor. The one union trade working the site was the steamfitters. They are now saying Berman skimped on steel. Berman has called the charge "total nonsense." The carpenters' union deployed a truck to East 42nd Street with a rolling electronic sign reading "Crime Scene" and "1,600 residential units at risk due to cutting corners." Scabby the Rat was also present.

The labor accusation is specific: the only workers at 235 E. 42nd with union representation witnessed the job from the inside and are making a direct materials claim. Whether that holds up in any investigation is unknown. What is recorded is the outcome: columns don't buckle halfway up skyscrapers without cause, and the footprint of a steel-column failure, as construction consultant Joel Silverman told The New Yorker, isn't a pancake — it's a topple, with a potential radius of 500 feet.

The 1,600 units are on pause. The conversion pipeline question — first flagged here after the July 7 incident — now has a labor dimension the city and the Mamdani administration will have to account for.