Brooklyn building collapse raises questions about neighboring construction
Officials are unsure what caused the collapse. But the neighboring construction may have been a contributing factor, according to a structural engineer.
Investigators are trying to determine what caused the sudden collapse of a three-story apartment building in Brooklyn, New York, that killed at least eight people, as crews continued to search for survivors among the rubble.
The structure, located at 1321 Flatbush Avenue, sat adjacent to a construction site before it collapsed Wednesday afternoon, according to city officials. City records show that it housed four apartments above a ground-floor commercial space.
Flatbush is a diverse Brooklyn neighborhood with a large immigrant population, including sizable Haitian, Jamaican and Trinidadian communities.
Excavation of the adjacent empty lot, located at 2625 Bedford Avenue, began sometime within a 30-day window after the parcel’s owner informed neighboring landlords of the work via a June 10 letter, which stated that all precautions would be taken “to protect all properties adjacent.”
New York City fire officials told reporters Wednesday that emergency personnel had received a call about a building collapse at 1321 Flatbush Avenue at 4:01 p.m. EST and some 250 firefighters and emergency responders had been dispatched to the scene.
The investigation is being led by New York City’s building department and law enforcement partners, city officials said.
What could have caused the collapse?
Officials are unsure what caused the collapse. But the neighboring construction may have been a contributing factor, destabilizing the building’s foundation and the soil supporting it, said Mehrdad Sasani, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University.
Based on photographs of the debris and the adjacent construction site on Bedford Avenue, Sasani said excavation crews may have dug too deeply near the apartment building without adequately supporting the surrounding soil. Typically, crews would install vertical support piles, reinforced by horizontal beams and diagonal steel braces, to stabilize the surrounding soil and prevent it from giving way, he said.
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“When you dig particularly deep just adjacent to the building, the foundation and the soil under the building” need to be properly supported, Sasani said. “I would suspect they went deep down and didn’t provide proper support for the soil.”
An anonymous complaint submitted to the New York City Department of Buildings following the collapse, questioned the excavation work taking place at the development site at 2625 Bedford Avenue.
“My concern is that the subcontractor may have excavated too much of the area along the neighboring foundation at once,” the complaint reads, adding that the person submitting the grievance “believes this may have been preventable.”
How is the city responding?
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani wrote on X on Thursday that rescue operations were ongoing and urged residents to stay clear of the area.
“This was a devastating collapse, and we know that it affects the lives of many New Yorkers who live here on Flatbush,” Mamdani told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. “As we rebuild, the City of New York will stand alongside those impacted at every step of the way.”
What, if any, recourse does the community have?
The aftermath of a disaster can be just as trying as the event itself, said Daniel Aldrich, a Northeastern professor, director of the Northeastern University’s Resilience Studies Program and co-director at the Global Resilience Institute. “Oftentimes the recovery process is called a second disaster,” he said.
Disasters such as these often highlight the inequalities in access to resources and institutional support, particularly among immigrant families with weaker connections to government institutions, he said. The residents in this section of Brooklyn may have strong support networks within their own communities, Aldrich said, but those ties don’t necessarily open doors to government resources and assistance.
“You really need a transparent investigation to rebuild trust,” Aldrich said. “If the community believes that the institutions have failed them, then the recovery process will be much, much longer and more painful.”
Aldrich said the city should establish makeshift family assistance centers with Spanish language translators. He said he will also be watching to see whether the city sets aside funding to help residents who lost their homes and belongings, particularly those who did not have renters insurance to cover their losses.
“Right across the street is the Bethesda Church [of God]. That has become a gathering place for the people” affected by the tragedy, Aldrich said. “That’s social infrastructure in action.”
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Tanner Stening is an assistant news editor at Northeastern Global News. Email him at t.stening@northeastern.edu. Follow him on X/Twitter @tstening90.