Rising 102 stories above the prestigious streets of New York City, the unusual proportions of 432 Park Avenue have long captured attention.

However, safety experts are now raising alarms about this ultra-slim condominium tower, nestled in Manhattan’s exclusive ‘Billionaires’ Row’ and hosting 125 luxurious apartments.

Opened in 2015, the skyscraper was designed with a sleek white concrete facade, which developers championed for its aesthetic appeal. Yet, experts now warn that this choice has led to significant structural issues, including cracks and cavities.

Among its notable residents were Jennifer Lopez and her former partner Alex Rodriguez, who purchased an apartment in the building for $15.3 million in 2018, adding a touch of Hollywood glamour to its allure.

Just a year later, the couple sold the property for $17.5 million, citing insufficient space for their combined family. Moreover, privacy concerns arose after a neighboring building captured a photo of Rodriguez in a compromising situation.

Today, the celebrity duo might feel fortunate to have moved on, as a recent New York Times report highlights a looming $160 million repair cost to address the building’s facade issues. Some experts even speculate that the tower might ultimately be deserted.

Engineering experts told the newspaper that the cracks and gouges on the facade of 432 Park suggest it is being ‘overtaxed by wind and rain.’ 

Those same engineers said that unless developers spend a nine-figure sum to fix the tower then residents may need to evacuate – and the towering structure could even pose a danger to pedestrians on the street below. 

Anthony Ingraffea, a concrete fractures expert who’s also an engineering professor emeritus at Cornell University, said that left unrepaired, 432 Park Avenue could eventually rain ‘concrete hand grenades’ onto the sidewalks.  

‘I would not sign off as a licensed engineer in the State of New York that this building will last forever,’ Ingraffea told The Times. 

‘I would sign a document that says the Empire State Building will last. This building, I doubt it.’

Structural engineer Steve Bongiorno, who worked on an earlier version of the tower’s design, offered an equally disturbing hypothesis about 432 Park Avenue’s future.

‘The building is being stressed beyond what was intended,’ he told The Times. 

Left untreated, he warned that: ‘Chunks of concrete will fall off, and windows will start loosening up.

‘You can’t take the elevators, mechanical systems start to fail, pipe joints start to break and you get water leaks all over the place.

‘The building just becomes uninhabitable.’

Bongiorno also warned that 432 Park has yet to be tested by sustained hurricane force winds, which could potentially cause severe damage. 

Meanwhile, for those living inside the behemoth, there are already issues aplenty.  

Residents have found themselves plagued by faulty elevators, poor plumbing and shaky floors.  

Ching Wong, a Hong Kong real estate investor spent $15 million on a three-bed condo in the tower in 2019 – but now finds himself faced with a horrific slew of snags.

Wong says his bathroom door will not close properly,  the air conditioning is broken in one of the apartment’s bedrooms, and the building’s 75-foot-long pool for residents is often closed. 

He is even more upset by the tripling of the building’s monthly fees in the six years since he has moved in than structural issues. 

Meanwhile, Wong’s neighbor, Jacqueline Finkelstein-LeBow, was left distraught after a $135,000 rug inside her condo suffered water damage.

It is still unclear whether a building defect or faulty underfloor heating installed by Finkelstein-LeBow caused the damage.

Building residents are also said to be annoyed by a demand for them to stump up the $5.3 million cost of renovating the tower’s private restaurants. 

The deceptively serene facade may conceal a host of ugly battles – but engineers say the building’s minimalist design is the root cause of many of its problems.  

‘It looks very simple,’ Justin Peters, a project executive for Lendlease, the building’s construction manager told trade publication Engineering News-Record. ‘It isn’t.’

Court papers detailing the discussions between developers show that there was a fierce disagreement about whether to coat the building in a slick, white color, or prioritize stability by using a darker, sturdier concrete. 

Documents seen by The Times show that developers stubbornly pursued aesthetics over longevity, ignoring repeated warnings by structural engineers. 

The court filings show that Silvian Marcus, a structural engineer at WSP, recommended adding a coal derivative called flyash to the concrete mix.

He made the suggestion after growing concerned about cracks in test columns created before construction on the tower began. 

‘They will not accept flyash (color is too dark),’ Hezi Mena, an engineer who was then a senior associate at WSP, wrote to Marcus in a December 2012 email.

Marcus replied saying that developers had two options – ‘color or cracks’.  

‘Hold the pour until they have a valid mix,’ he wrote to Mena and the developers. 

‘Otherwise we will have future problems very painful to be solved and substantial project delays.’

But construction went ahead with the white exterior envisaged by the artsy developers, and cracks almost immediately began to show. 

Consultants were brought in to fix the building’s exterior without compromising its style. They advised painting the tower with an elastomeric coating, which would seal the cracks and protect the exterior from water and air damage. 

However, this thick, rubbery overlay would give the building a glossy look and spoil the matte aesthetic the developers had originally sought. 

The lead developer, real estate heavyweight Harry Macklowe, suggested using a clear-coat finish similar to the product used to patch up the yacht he raced in European regattas. 

But Marcus advised against this, siding instead with the safer option tabled by the consultants. He admitted that this would ‘have appearance impact,’ but was the best option overall. 

‘You are not being at all helpful!’ Bill Unger, a senior member of 432 Park’s development team, hollered back in an email seen by the NYT. 

‘Honestly, I prefer to disappoint today rather than installing something that even the manufacturer has doubts that will work,’ Marcus replied. 

Developers opted for the clear, aesthetic option, leading to severe issues by the point of completion in 2015. 

There are other issues too. The shape of the building itself means those living on its top floors are more likely to feel their apartment move as the building sways in the wind.

A less-aesthetically pleasing tapered top to the building could have mitigated this, by making the tower more aerodynamic.

Builders instead constructed a series of open-air floors to let wind pass through – but the emergence of cracks and breakdowns in the building’s counterweight system suggest the wind is further stressing the tower, according to engineer Scott Chen. 

Charles L’Heureux, who was then a senior project manager with Lendlease wrote in an October 2015 email about ‘voids’ found in the concrete exterior which were so concerning that repairs were needed ‘immediately’.

David Dods, who was a top executive involved with Macklowe’s company, wrote back describing the defects in even more damning terms. 

The severity of the problems was ‘beyond concerning,’ he wrote. 

‘It is deplorable and should be embarrassing to anyone associated with the project with even the slightest level of care for quality.’

Jose Torero, head of the department of civil, environmental and geomatic engineering at University College London, said the building now stands as a failed experiment at reaching new heights. 

‘A 10-year-old building should not be showing that level of deterioration,’ Torero told The Times. ‘Nobody can argue that that is not a failure.’ 

Jami Schlicher, a spokeswoman for one of the project’s developers, CIM Group, said in a statement to The Times that the tower was considered safe by inspectors.

She slammed claims about deterioration as ‘baseless’ and said allegations that the developers ignored safety concerns were ‘categorically untrue, defamatory and yet another misstep by the board that will drive down property values.’ 

Residents still living in 432 Park face now face a cooling ultra-luxury real estate market and a building besieged by bad publicity. 

They’re divided over how to fix the building’s issues. The glossy rubbery coating developers didn’t want is one option. 

Insurers are unlikely to pay the cost of the repair, meaning that even the most deep pocketed resident of the skyscraper face paying eyewatering sums to keep their homes inhabitable.