New York Construction Report staff writer
New York City police Thursday evening released the names of all eight people killed when a three-story mixed-use building in Brooklyn collapsed into an adjacent construction excavation site, as investigators scrutinized support-of-excavation filings and launched emergency inspections at roughly 100 sites linked to entities involved in the neighboring project.
The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) concluded search-and-rescue operations Thursday afternoon at 1321 Flatbush Ave. in the Flatbush neighborhood after determining no additional victims remained beneath the rubble, turning the site over to the Department of Buildings (DOB) and the New York City Police Department.
“The FDNY mourns with those families and we promise with everything we have, we will not stop working until everyone is rescued or recovered,” the department said.
Six victims died at the scene and two died at nearby hospitals following Wednesday’s 4:01 p.m. collapse, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said during a Thursday press briefing. Of the 18 people injured, 14 were civilians — including seven children — and four were firefighters, with one victim remaining in critical condition Thursday.
A senior NYPD official identified the eight deceased victims Thursday evening as:
- Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9, of Brooklyn
- Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10, of Brooklyn
- Gabriel Siguencia, 22, of the Bronx
- Barry Mamadou, 23, of Brooklyn
- José Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26, of Brooklyn
- Edgar Sapon, 26, of Manhattan
- Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31, of Brooklyn
- Ndiaye Mamadou, 31, of Brooklyn
Police said Rodriguez, Guzman, Gonzalez, Ndiaye Mamadou and Barry Mamadou were residents of 1321 Flatbush Ave., while Siguencia, Sapon and Cosquillo lived in the Bronx, Hell’s Kitchen and Bushwick, respectively. Mamdani confirmed earlier Thursday that two of the eight fatalities were construction workers at the adjacent job site and praised workers who survived the initial collapse before turning back to dig trapped victims from the debris alongside arriving firefighters.
“These were our friends and our neighbors — parents and children, young families building their lives in our city, and immigrants from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad, and beyond,” Mamdani said.
The 1930 three-story masonry structure at 1321 Flatbush Ave., which housed commercial space on the ground floor and four residential units across the second and third floors, fell into an active excavation pit next door at 2625 Bedford Ave. The collapse also sheared off the shared exterior wall of an adjacent building at 1323 Flatbush Ave., exposing interior stairwells and apartments.
More than 250 FDNY firefighters and EMS personnel worked overnight and through Thursday using drones, K-9 units, buckets, vacuum trucks and hand tools to search unstable brick and timber voids. At about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, firefighters pulled a woman alive from a hole dug into the debris; a man at the scene identified the survivor as his pregnant wife.
Mamdani announced Thursday that investigators identified five entities connected to the adjacent construction site at 2625 Bedford Ave. that are collectively associated with approximately 100 other development sites across New York City.
“The Department of Buildings is commencing sweeps of those sites to ensure that if there’s anything New Yorkers need to be worried about, that we are on the scene and we are doing something about it,” Mamdani said. “I will just underline — if there’s anyone or any entity operating in this city that bears responsibility for what happened, we will hold them fully accountable.”
The DOB issued a new full stop-work order at 2625 Bedford Ave. on Wednesday citing “unsafe construction operations causing adjacent building (1321 Flatbush Avenue) to collapse.”
NYC Building Code rules for excavation near occupied structures
New York City DOB Commissioner Ahmed Tigani said construction workers were actively excavating alongside 1321 Flatbush Ave. when the structure gave way. Tigani confirmed that while developers held an approved plan for a three-story building at 2625 Bedford Ave., a separate application for a proposed nine-story mixed-use development had not yet been approved.
City earthwork and support-of-excavation permits issued Sept. 9 list Brooklyn-based Townhouse Builders Inc. as the contractor on the neighboring project, according to municipal permit filings reviewed by Engineering News-Record. Excavation was permitted to extend 14 feet below grade.
Professional engineer Jieming Wang of LMW Engineering Group LLC in Linden, New Jersey, is listed on the support-of-excavation filing, which specified tangent or secant piles, shoring and bracing, and soldier piles with wood lagging — with dry pack specified to prevent soil loss across a maximum 6-foot lagging span — alongside special inspection requirements for sheeting, shoring and bracing.
According to engineering notes on the filing reviewed by Engineering News-Record, the site’s structural monitoring thresholds required immediate notification of the construction manager, owner and engineer if vertical or lateral building movement reached a quarter-inch, and a mandatory work stoppage if movement reached a half-inch, if vibration exceeded three-quarters of an inch per second, or if an individual crack-gauge reading exceeded 2 millimeters.
Records on the Department of Buildings’ DOB NOW online portal listed the sheeting, shoring and bracing special inspection category as identified but not yet certified as completed as of Thursday, Engineering News-Record reported — a status indicating only that certification had not been logged in the portal rather than establishing whether inspections occurred.
Neither Townhouse Builders Inc. nor Wang and LMW Engineering Group LLC had responded to requests for comment from Engineering News-Record as of Thursday evening.
Municipal filings show 2625 Bedford Ave. is owned by a limited liability company led by Robert Fischman, with Cheng-Yi Lin Architecture listed as architect of record. A pre-construction photographic survey filed with the pending nine-story application documented that the neighboring 1930 building at 1321 Flatbush Ave. was already in “poor” condition prior to excavation, citing masonry misalignments, cracks and major deficiencies along its north wall facing the pit.
City housing records also show the collapsed building at 1321 Flatbush Ave. — owned by Isolag Realty Corporation, with Olufemi Falade listed as registered agent — had 98 open housing maintenance violations ranging from leaks to pests, though it had zero open Department of Buildings structural violations prior to Wednesday.
Earlier this year, the DOB issued a stop-work order in March and a Class 1 violation on April 23 to demolition contractor N Tech Design of America after inspectors found the prior one-story structure at 2625 Bedford Ave. had been completely leveled in violation of that order.
City records show the demolition contractor paid a $10,000 civil penalty and corrected the overhead-protection citations, allowing the stop-work order to be lifted in May — months before excavation began. Officials have not linked the earlier demolition enforcement to Wednesday’s collapse.
Officials had not determined Thursday night whether the excavation, support-of-excavation work or preexisting structural conditions caused the collapse. DOB inspectors remained on-site assessing the structural stability of surrounding properties, while the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office is working with the department and police to investigate whether any criminal conduct contributed to the deaths.
New York City Emergency Management and the American Red Cross operated a reception center for displaced residents at the Flatbush YMCA, and police kept Flatbush Avenue closed between Clarendon Road and Bedford Avenue.
