4 minute read
A three story building in the heart of Flatbush fell into a construction pit next door on Wednesday afternoon, killing two people and injuring 17 others. Seven of the injured are children, and four people were in critical condition as firefighters dug through the rubble into the night.
The building at 1321 Flatbush Avenue, at the corner of Bedford Avenue, gave way just after 4 in the afternoon and dropped into an open excavation at 2625 Bedford Avenue. The first call for help reached the fire department at 4:01, and crews were on the scene within moments.
City records show the building went up in 1930 and held four homes above a store at street level. By nightfall the lot where it stood was a field of concrete, brick and splintered wood, and the building next door at 1323 Flatbush Avenue stood with its side sheared open and its apartments exposed.
Major Takeaways
- Two people died and 17 were injured, including seven children and one firefighter, after the building on Flatbush Avenue fell into the excavation beside it.
- Four of the injured were in critical condition on Wednesday night, and officials warned that the toll could still change.
- A pregnant woman and a mother with her two small children were pulled alive from the wreckage.
- The cause of the collapse is under investigation, and the digging on the lot next door is part of what investigators will examine.
More than 250 firefighters and medics worked the scene, joined by search dogs and drones as daylight faded. Crews dug by hand with axes and pickaxes and worked under floodlights while family members waited behind police tape for word on the people they love.
Some of the rescues bordered on the miraculous. More than two hours after the collapse, firefighters pulled a woman alive from the wreckage. She is six months pregnant, and her husband, waiting at the scene, said through tears, “She’s alive. She’s still alive. I’m very happy.”
Firefighters also brought out a mother and her two children, ages 7 and 2. The father had received a desperate call from his wife saying she was trapped under the wreckage with rubble on top of her, and crews reached the family and carried them out.
Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said the department does not know how many people were inside the building when it fell. “We do not know how many people are still in the collapse zone,” she said, calling the search a prolonged operation. Chief of Department John Esposito described the site as a very unstable situation.
Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said work crews had been excavating on the lot next door earlier in the day. The Department of Buildings and law enforcement are investigating what caused the building to fall, and no cause had been named by late Wednesday. Mayor Zohran Mamdani joined city officials at the nighttime briefing.
Flatbush is one of the Blackest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, a center of Afro Caribbean life in New York City, where Flatbush Avenue is lined with Caribbean restaurants, markets and churches. By evening, New York City Emergency Management had set up a Red Cross help center for residents pushed out of their homes, and neighbors gathered along the avenue to watch the search and pray for the families still waiting on news.
The search was expected to continue through Thursday and possibly for days. The names of the two people who died had not been released, and officials said every figure could still change as crews work through what is left of the building.
It was a heavy day of news for Black America, from the collapse in Brooklyn to a historic Senate result taking shape in Mississippi and a new plan in Milwaukee aimed at saving Black babies. Urban City Podcast will update this story as names are released and answers come.
