New York
Luxury Condo Owners Accuse Builders of Hiding Dangerous Defects
The condo board at a troubled 1,400-foot luxury tower on New York City’s Billionaires’ Row is accusing developers of “deliberate and far-reaching fraud” by failing to disclose early cracks in the facade that it says could lead to dangerous structural issues.
Condo board members say that CIM Group and other developers of 432 Park Avenue failed to alert potential buyers and city inspectors about the severity of cracks in the signature white concrete facade that also “acts as a critical component of the building’s structural support,” according to a new lawsuit. The building opened in 2015.
The suit, filed late last month in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, also names as defendants an engineering firm and an architectural firm tied to the building’s construction. The board seeks damages exceeding $165 million, including “the diminution in value of the building and its units.”
The lawsuit details nearly 1,900 defects that have emerged in the facade of the building, one of several slender apartment buildings known as “supertalls” that dot the Manhattan skyline. Photos in the filing show vein-like cracks and chunks of concrete missing from the facade.
The suit accuses the defendants of knowing about the cracks early on but, worried about their bottom line, failing to adequately address them and instead covering up their effects.
“This matter extends beyond negligence into an alleged calculated scheme, driven by greed, that eroded trust,” Terrence Oved, a lawyer for the condo board, said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for CIM Group said the firm “vehemently” denied the claims and planned to move to dismiss the complaint. A lawyer for SLCE Architects, one of the defendants, also denied the allegations and noted plans to move to dismiss the complaint. The other defendants did not return requests for comment.
The Park Avenue building marked a turning point in luxury condo development in the city when it opened, luring wealthy part-time residents and investors who hid their identities behind shell companies. The tower drew the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez, who owned a $15.3 million, 4,000-square-foot apartment for a year, and a Saudi retail and real-estate tycoon who bought a penthouse. The building had a projected value of over $3 billion.
The suit follows other legal action the condo board filed against developers in 2021 after The New York Times revealed simmering dissension among residents who complained of floods that did multimillion-dollar damage, trash chutes that sounded like garbage bombs, stuck elevators and swaying related to the building’s slender profile. That suit seeks $160 million in damages and is pending in state court.
It’s been a tough stretch for New York’s tall, luxury towers.
Construction on 1 Seaport in the South Street Seaport neighborhood in Manhattan has been stopped in the wake of lawsuits after the tower was found to be leaning. And in Brooklyn, only a handful of units have been sold in the Brooklyn Tower, the borough’s first supertall, which has been plagued with financial drama.
The most recent suit filed over 432 Park Avenue took shape as lawyers for the board pored through seven million pages of documents and about 100 days of depositions tied to the 2021 lawsuit.
In the new suit, lawyers for the board presented a detailed explanation of defects in the tower that emerged from the start.
Plans for the building called for a naturally white concrete facade, which posed a unique challenge for a slender tower of that height. The concrete had to be strong enough to withstand all the floors pressing down on one another and stiff enough to hold up against winds that would push against the building during storms.
Andreas Tselebidis, the designer of the concrete mix, said it was “the greatest challenge ever requested by a ready mix producer,” according to the suit.
Mr. Tselebidis did not respond to a request for comment.
Cracks emerged across vertical columns in every mock-up test over a six-month period, the suit said.
The firm of Rafael Viñoly, the star architect who led the design, had repeatedly voiced concerns about the cracking, according to the suit.
“It is difficult to know the impact of cracking in a fully loaded building,” the firm wrote in a field report on Dec. 17, 2012, which was cited in the lawsuit. “It is imperative that the concrete consultant review these conditions and advise.”
The next day, Silvian Marcus of WSP, the building’s structural engineer that is one of the defendants in the suit, also expressed concerns, writing to developers to “hold the pour” until they had a “valid” white concrete mix.
Mr. Viñoly died in 2023. Mr. Marcus did not return requests for comment.
The developers forged ahead, the suit said, ordering the concrete to be poured the next month.
Cracks emerged even at the start of the pouring process, according to the suit. It said the concrete supplier was “still experimenting with design mixes” three months after the start of the facade’s construction and without understanding the cause of the cracks or how to prevent them.
The result was a luxury tower, briefly the tallest residential building in the world, with “thousands upon thousands of cracks” beginning to form, the suit said.
Ideas were batted around for how to stop the cracking with various coatings and patching. Four separate consultants were hired. But the suit accuses developers of ignoring some of the repair ideas “due to potential schedule, cost and aesthetic impacts.”
In April 2016, one of the consultants issued a report detailing 1,893 defects, more than half of which it categorized as “life safety items.” Thousands of other cracks had been patched over during construction, the suit said. Some of the flaws were aesthetic, and others were “large voids, spalls of unknown origin, unfilled cracks, opened cracks and other serious deficiencies,” the suit said.
Developers wound up with repairs that neither stopped the flooding nor prevented further cracking, according to the suit.
The suit contends that members of the development team falsely misrepresented the “nature, extent and type of cracking” to the city’s Department of Buildings, the suit said.
Architects and engineers in New York are responsible for notifying the Buildings Department of any “immediately hazardous conditions” at properties where they are working. The department had not been notified of any such conditions at 432 Park Avenue, a spokesman said.
The suit also said the disclosures used in information for potential buyers and filed with the state attorney general’s office was revised in 2013.
Wording that had said the density of the concrete “will prevent water penetration” was changed to say the concrete and properly sealed windows “have been designed to prevent water penetration.”
Every week since 1976, Metropolitan Diary has published stories by, and for, New Yorkers of all ages and eras (no matter where they live now): anecdotes and memories, quirky encounters and overheard snippets that reveal the city’s spirit and heart.
For the past four years, we’ve asked for your help picking the best Diary entry of the year. Now we’re asking again.
We’ve narrowed the field to the five finalists here. Read them and vote for your favorite. The author of the item that gets the most votes will receive a print of the illustration that accompanied it, signed by the artist, Agnes Lee.
The voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 21. You can change your vote as many times as you’d like until then, but you may only pick one. Choose wisely.
Click “VOTE” to choose your favorite Metropolitan Diary entry of 2025, and come back on Sunday, Dec. 28, to see which one our readers picked as their favorite.
Click “VOTE” to choose your favorite Metropolitan Diary entry of 2025, and come back on Sunday, Dec. 28, to see which one our readers picked as their favorite.
Two Stops
Dear Diary:
It was a drizzly June night in 2001. I was a young magazine editor and had just enjoyed what I thought was a very blissful second date — dinner, drinks, fabulous conversation — with our technology consultant at a restaurant in Manhattan.
I lived in Williamsburg at the time, and my date lived near Murray Hill, so we grabbed a cab and headed south on Second Avenue.
“Just let me out here,” my date said to the cabby at the corner of 25th Street.
We said our goodbyes, quick and shy, knowing that we would see each other at work the next day. I was giddy and probably grinning with happiness and hope.
“Oh boy,” the cabby said, shaking his head as we drove toward Brooklyn. “Very bad.”
“What do you mean?” I asked in horror.
“He doesn’t want you to know exactly where he lives,” the cabby said. “Not a good sign.”
I spent the rest of the cab ride in shock, revisiting every moment of the date.
Happily, it turned out that my instinct about it being a great date was right, and the cabby was wrong. Twenty-four years later, my date that night is my husband, and I know that if your stop is first, it’s polite to get out so the cab can continue in a straight line to the next stop.
Ferry Farewell
Dear Diary:
On a February afternoon, I met my cousins at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Their spouses and several of our very-grown children were there too. I brought Prosecco, a candle, a small speaker to play music, photos and a poem.
We were there to recreate the wedding cruise of my mother, Monica, and my stepfather, Peter. They had gotten married at City Hall in August 1984. She was 61, and he, 71. It was her first marriage, and his fourth.
I was my mother’s witness that day. It was a late-in-life love story, and they were very happy. Peter died in 1996, at 82. My mother died last year. She was 100.
Peter’s ashes had waited a long time, but finally they were mingled with Monica’s. The two of them would ride the ferry a last time and then swirl together in the harbor forever. Cue the candles, bubbly, bagpipes and poems.
Two ferry workers approached us. We knew we were in trouble: Open containers and open flames were not allowed on the ferry.
My cousin’s husband, whispering, told the workers what we were doing and said we would be finished soon.
They walked off, and then returned. They said they had spoken to the captain, and they ushered us to the stern for some privacy. As the cup of ashes flew into the water, the ferry horn sounded two long blasts.
Unacceptable
Dear Diary:
I went to a new bagel store in Brooklyn Heights with my son.
When it was my turn to order, I asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel with whitefish salad and a slice of red onion.
The man behind the counter looked up at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do that.”
Teresa
Dear Diary:
It was February 2013. With a foot of snow expected, I left work early and drove from New Jersey warily as my wipers squeaked and snow and ice stuck to my windows.
I drove east on the Cross Bronx Expressway, which was tied up worse than usual. Trucks groaned on either side of my rattling Toyota. My fingers were cold. My toes were colder. Got to get home before it really comes down, I thought to myself.
By the time I got home to my little red bungalow a stone’s throw from the Throgs Neck Bridge, the snow was already up to my ankles.
Inside, I took off my gloves, hat, scarf, coat, sweater, pants and snow boots. The bed, still unmade, was inviting me. But first, I checked my messages.
There was one from Teresa, the 92-year-old widow on the corner.
“Call me,” she said, sounding desperate.
I looked toward the warm bed, but … Teresa. There was a storm outside, and she was alone.
On went the pants, the sweater, the coat, the scarf, the boots and the gloves, and then I went out the door.
The snow was six inches deep on the sidewalks, so I tottered on tire tracks in the middle of the street. The wind stung my face. When I got to the end of the block, I pounded on her door.
“Teresa!” I called. No answer. “Teresa!” I called again. I heard the TV blaring. Was she sprawled on the floor?
I went next door and called for Kathy.
“Teresa can’t answer the door,” I said. “Probably fell.”
Kathy had a key. In the corner of her neat living room, Teresa, in pink sweatpants and sweaters, was sitting curled in her armchair, head bent down and The Daily News in her lap.
I snapped off the TV.
Startled, she looked up.
“Kathy! Neal!” she said. “What’s a five-letter word for cabbage?”
Nice Place
Dear Diary:
When I lived in Park Slope over 20 years ago, I once had to call an ambulance because of a sudden, violent case of food poisoning.
Two paramedics, a man and a woman, entered our third-floor walk-up with a portable chair. Strapping me in, the male medic quickly inserted an IV line into my arm.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his partner circling around and admiring the apartment.
“Nice place you’ve got here.” she said. “Do you own it?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, all but unconscious.
Once I was in the ambulance, she returned to her line of inquiry.
“Do you mind me asking how much you paid for your apartment?”
“$155,000,” I croaked.
“Wow! You must have bought during the recession.”
“Yeah” I said.
They dropped me off at Methodist Hospital, where I was tended to by a nurse as I struggled to stay lucid.
At some point, the same medic poked her head into the room with one last question:
“You wouldn’t be wanting to sell any time soon, would you?”
Illustrations by Agnes Lee.
‘Part of the job’
Edwin Guity was at the controls of a southbound D train last December, rolling through the Bronx, when suddenly someone was on the tracks in front of him.
He jammed on the emergency brake, but it was too late. The man had gone under the wheels.
Stumbling over words, Mr. Guity radioed the dispatcher and then did what the rules require of every train operator involved in such an incident. He got out of the cab and went looking for the person he had struck.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Guity said later. “But this is a part of the job.”
He found the man pinned beneath the third car. Paramedics pulled him out, but the man died at the hospital. After that, Mr. Guity wrestled with what to do next.
A 32-year-old who had once lived in a family shelter with his parents, he viewed the job as paying well and offering a rare chance at upward mobility. It also helped cover the costs of his family’s groceries and rent in the three-bedroom apartment they shared in Brooklyn.
But striking the man with the train had shaken him more than perhaps any other experience in his life, and the idea of returning to work left him feeling paralyzed.
Edwin Guity was prescribed exposure therapy after his train struck a man on the tracks.
Hundreds of train operators have found themselves in Mr. Guity’s position over the years.
And for just as long, there has been a path through the state workers’ compensation program to receiving substantive treatment to help them cope. But New York’s train operators say that their employer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has done too little to make them aware of that option.
After Mr. Guity’s incident, no official told him of that type of assistance, he said. Instead, they gave him the option of going back to work right away.
But Mr. Guity was lucky. He had a friend who had been through the same experience and who coached him on getting help — first through a six-week program and then, with the assistance of a lawyer, through an experienced specialist.
The specialist prescribed a six-month exposure therapy program to gradually reintroduce Mr. Guity to the subway.
His first day back at the controls of a passenger train was on Thanksgiving. Once again, he was driving on the D line — the same route he had been traveling on the day of the fatal accident.
M.T.A. representatives insisted that New York train operators involved in strikes are made aware of all options for getting treatment, but they declined to answer specific questions about how the agency ensures that drivers get the help they need.
In an interview, the president of the M.T.A. division that runs the subway, Demetrius Crichlow, said all train operators are fully briefed on the resources available to them during their job orientation.
“I really have faith in our process,” Mr. Crichlow said.
Still, other transit systems — all of which are smaller than New York’s — appear to do a better job of ensuring that operators like Mr. Guity take advantage of the services available to them, according to records and interviews.
A Times analysis shows that the incidents were on the rise in New York City’s system even as they were falling in all other American transit systems.
An Uptick in Subway Strikes
San Francisco’s system provides 24-hour access to licensed therapists through a third-party provider.
Los Angeles proactively reaches out to its operators on a regular basis to remind them of workers’ compensation options and other resources.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has made it a goal to increase engagement with its employee assistance program.
The M.T.A. says it offers some version of most of these services.
But in interviews with more than two dozen subway operators who have been involved in train strikes, only one said he was aware of all those resources, and state records suggest most drivers of trains that strike people are not taking full advantage of them.
“It’s the M.T.A.’s responsibility to assist the employee both mentally and physically after these horrific events occur,” the president of the union that represents New York City transit workers, John V. Chiarello, said in a statement, “but it is a constant struggle trying to get the M.T.A. to do the right thing.”
new video loaded: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
transcript
transcript
Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
Nearly 200 protesters tried to block federal agents from leaving a parking garage in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. The confrontation appeared to prevent a possible ICE raid nearby, and led to violent clashes between the police and protesters.
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[chanting] “ICE out of New York.”
By Jorge Mitssunaga
November 30, 2025
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