After a night of frantic searches through the rubble of a Brooklyn building collapse that killed eight people, New York City officials announced on Thursday that they were ending their rescue efforts, concluding there were no more victims.
Eighteen other people, including four firefighters, were injured in the collapse and its aftermath at 1321 Flatbush Avenue. Two children who were cousins were among the eight killed, according to an internal police report. Three were construction workers.
The tragedy shattered the heavily immigrant neighborhood and set off a city investigation into excavation at the construction site next door at 2625 Bedford Avenue.
The collapse occurred around 4 p.m. on Wednesday. James Williams, who works at a deli across the street, said he had been hearing an incessant loud hammering noise every few minutes from the construction site on Wednesday afternoon. He went outside and saw bricks falling from 1321 Flatbush, a three-story apartment building. “I’m like, Oh hell, what is going on?” he said.
He watched as the building started to crumble, its front and side sliding away, and a check-cashing shop that he frequented underneath all collapsing into the open construction site next door. He saw clothes and a microwave oven thrown into the dust-filled air. He heard people scream.
The first firefighters arrived within a minute, followed by more from around New York City and from New Rochelle, N.Y., in Westchester County. The search and rescue efforts involved about 250 personnel in all.
At 2625 Bedford, city officials had approved plans for a three-story building, and the developers of the site had submitted paperwork for a nine-story building with 64 apartments, a community space and a grocery store. Previously, it had been home to a one-story building.
City officials said that the developers had an active permit for excavation and foundation work on the lot and that workers were excavating at the time of the collapse. Photos of the site showed shoring holding up the walls of the excavation site.
In March, the New York City Department of Buildings had ordered the property owner to stop demolition work at the site after it found that there was inadequate protection for nearby properties. The department lifted the order in August after finding that the project team had corrected the violations.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who pledged “a full and thorough” investigation into the collapse, said that officials had identified five entities associated with the construction site and were “commencing sweeps” of roughly 100 other sites across the city that had ties to them.
Mr. Mamdani said that he was “incredibly troubled” that construction had continued at the site even though an inspection report in March had identified cracks in the north facade of the collapsed building. He said the city would hold anyone responsible for unsafe conditions “fully accountable.”
“This has been a devastating evening and morning for our city,” the mayor said. “We are mourning too many people who we love.”
The general contractor at the construction site, Townhouse Builders, and the engineer on the project, LMW Engineering Group, did not respond to requests for comment. The limited liability company that owns the property is associated with two women, Faigy Fischman and Judy Swimer. A man who answered a phone number listed for Ms. Fischman declined to speak to a reporter. Ms. Swimer did not respond to a message left at a phone number listed under her name.
The collapsed building, which had faded letters on the facade that read “Ceasar Building,” was built of stone in 1930 and had four apartments, with a commercial space on the ground floor, according to city records. It was the last in a row of 10 nearly identical buildings, and sat on a block with a corner deli, a furniture store, a nail salon, a pharmacy, a Pentecostal church and a day care center. The dead, Mr. Mamdani said, included parents and children, “young families building their lives in our city, and immigrants from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and beyond.”
As rain started to pelt Brooklyn on Thursday, rescue workers were still scouring the site with search dogs, drones, helicopters, fire trucks and heavy machinery. The collapse sheared off the wall of an adjacent building, leaving a staircase, a pink bedroom and closets filled with clothing exposed to the elements.
The American Red Cross said 14 adults and five children in seven households had signed up for emergency assistance, including temporary housing.
City officials identified seven of the victims as Nicole Daniela Rodriguez, 9; Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10; Gabriel Siguencia, 22; Mamadou Barry, 23; Edgar Santiago Sapón Gutierrez, 26; José Luis Caguana, 26; and Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31. The eighth victim, a man, had not yet been identified.
Mr. Siguencia migrated from Ecuador in March 2025 and started working on the construction site two weeks ago, according to his mother, Leanor Yupa. She had watched as rescue crews hauled debris out of the site. When she learned that her son was among the dead, she dropped to her knees and screamed.
A family friend, Javier Ortega, said that Mr. Siguencia “came here looking for a better life, a means to live, like so many migrants do.”
Mr. Gutierrez, who was also a construction worker at the site, came to the United States from Guatemala three years ago. His relatives had spent the night searching for him at the morgue and then watching as bodies were pulled from the rubble, said Marisela Vasquez, 35, whose niece was married to Mr. Gutierrez. He had a 6-year-old son, and his wife arrived Wednesday evening after hearing of the collapse, hoping to find him.
Mr. Caguana, an immigrant from Ecuador and also a construction worker at the site, was supporting a growing family. He would pick up his 4-year-old son at a nursery school in Bushwick, Brooklyn, said Alexandra Simonian, the son’s teacher, and his wife is expecting a child this month. “They were very attached, a very sweet kind of family,” she said.
After the collapse on Wednesday, more than a dozen firefighters pulled a pregnant woman from the rubble, as her husband broke down in tears. “She is still alive,” the man said at an impromptu news conference near the scene. “I am very happy.”
Farah Louis, a City Council member who represents the neighborhood, said on Thursday that the woman, who was from the West African nation of Guinea, was in stable condition at a hospital.
“This is a very close-knit community,” Ms. Louis said, adding, “These folks are our neighbors. They’re our friends. That’s why the community is so heartbroken.”
The collapse renewed concerns about the rapid development that has been transforming Brooklyn. Carlo A. Scissura, the president of the New York Building Congress, a construction and real estate trade group, said smaller projects outside Midtown Manhattan often do not get the same close scrutiny, a frustration that many residents share.
“I know a lot of people are not a fan of the new construction,” said Yolanda Solomon, a pastor in Flatbush. “It seems it happened so fast.”
Reporting was contributed by Liam Stack, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, Sharon Otterman, Caitlyn Freeman, Chelsia Rose Marcius, Maria Cramer, Mihir Zaveri, Todd Heisler, Christopher Maag, Andy Newman, Kaja Andric and Wesley Parnell.
