Park Avenue is located in one of the most prosperous core areas in New York, USA. There are many high-rise buildings on both sides of the avenue, dotted with many luxury apartments and high-end residences, which are symbols of wealth and status. It is reported that skyscraper No. 432 on Park Avenue was completed ten years ago. It is 426 meters high and has 102 floors. Before 2020, it was the tallest apartment building in the world, attracting the world's richest home buyers.

However, the outer walls of this landmark building are now filled with cracks, and the owners who live in it are deeply disturbed by it. The cracks on the outside indicate that the high building is under excessive structural pressure.

The walls of the apartment are full of cracks.

Triggered multiple legal proceedings

According to relevant documents, apartment building No.432 has now triggered a number of legal proceedings, claims involving plumbing and mechanical failures, water seepage in the ceiling, frequent elevator failures, and squeaking noises from the walls. The owners said their living room had noticeable shaking in the high winds in Manhattan, New York. In April this year, the owners collectively filed a lawsuit in New York state court, seeking more than $165 million in compensation from the building's construction and engineering firm.

The 432 skyscraper on Park Avenue was once the tallest residential building in the world.

The issue of compensation has not been resolved, and the owners have begun to blame each other for various issues, including the surge in public expenses, the destruction of infrastructure by the building employees, and the real cause of the damage to a $135,000 carpet of the owner on the 64th floor-whether it was the design defect of the building or the floor heating of the owner's own house.

Currently, the owners of Apartment 432 are still divided on how to resolve the building's problems. Some residents believe the building's problems were exaggerated, causing them to pay high legal fees; others believe the building was poorly managed and they need compensation.

Who is the chief culprit for the cracks in the building?

Developers insist on using pure white concrete, or lack of strength

Recent reports submitted to the City of New York showed that concrete blocks were missing on the highest floors of the 432 apartment building, and new cracks continued to emerge on the surface. Engineers warned that if these problems were not properly addressed, the building could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate. Otherwise, the 432 apartment could eventually become uninhabitable and even pose a security threat to pedestrians.

Inspection photos of the building in 2024 showed that the exterior had been damaged in varying degrees.

The previously acclaimed all-white concrete exterior of the apartment wasly adopted by the team of its star architects and developers who insisted on the design, which is likely to be the culprit of the building's problems.

According to thousands of pages of court documents, public records and private correspondence between residents and planners, several key members of the development team, engineers and architects of apartment block 432 had concerns about the reliability of the white facade long before the concrete was poured. Five months before construction started, a chief architect had expressed concern about the concrete specification changes planned by developers and contractors, warning that the move was "heading down a dangerous and absurd path."

Usually, concrete has a gray tone due to the iron oxide content in cement, and changing the ratio will directly affect its strength, color and performance. Therefore, the construction of apartment building No.432 faces a big challenge: how to blend a concrete mixture that not only meets the aesthetic standards, but also meets the demanding requirements of super high-rise buildings for material strength.

According to reports, two months before the completion of the building, the problem of concrete exterior walls has begun to emerge. Charles Le Jour, then project construction management manager, expressed concern in an email in October 2015, pointing out that a "cavity" was found in the concrete exterior wall, and the problem was so serious that it had to be "fixed immediately". More than three months later, the New York City Building Department conducted an inspection of the building and asked about the cracks. However, Le Jour responded in an email to a supervisor in January 2016: "There are no structural problems, these are only minor cracks, which are within the expected range, and there are no accidents."

After the lawsuit was filed against the apartment, an engineering expert involved in the project pointed out that all concrete could crack and that the building was built strictly to specifications and was fully designed to withstand strong winds. Jamie Schlicher, a spokesman for the apartment developer, also said in a statement that the apartment was designed and built by a world-class professional team and was determined to be safe by inspectors, and that allegations of deteriorating conditions of the exterior walls were "baseless."

Apartment developers say owners¡¯ allegations about the deterioration of the exterior walls are ¡°unfounded¡±

According to Jose Torrero, head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geographic Engineering at University College London, "The appearance, height and slenderness of the building have been pushed to the extreme. A 10-year-old building should not have suffered this level of damage, and there is no doubt that the building is a failure." In addition, according to another engineering expert, cracks in the building's exterior walls increase the risk of rainwater seeping into the structure, which can cause the steel bars to rust and expand, creating more cracks.

Red Star journalist.