under the weight of its buildings – and has been for many years.
The calculated cumulative mass of the 1,084,954 buildings within the five boroughs was found to be around 1.68 trillion pounds. The average building mass is 1.55 million pounds. The estimates only included the buildings and their contents – not the sidewalks, subways and bridges. "Some of this deformation is consistent with internal consolidation of artificial fill and other soft sediment that may be exacerbated by recent building loads, though there are many possible causes," the study said.
A general view of Lower Manhattan across the East River from Brooklyn Bridge Park on February 16, 2022, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.Furthermore, there are areas of significant subsidence that are clearly not explained by building loads, most notably on northern Staten Island.