Pfizer escapes from NYC with the cash

Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, plans to lay off or relocate up to 1,400 New York City employees, seven years after receiving millions of dollars in tax breaks to create jobs in the city.

On Monday the company, which has already scrapped about 2,000 positions, also put its office tower at 865 Third Ave up for sale. Pfizer officials said the company’s world headquarters would remain in the office tower at 235 East 42nd Street, near Grand Central Terminal. The company, which has been based in New York City since its founding in 1849, has about 4,400 employees here.

But the company’s decision is a remarkable turnabout in Pfizer’s once robust expansion plans for New York and an embarrassment for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and state officials who had provided the drug-maker with the tax breaks in 2003.

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