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By Dan Gooding and Giulia Carbonaro
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The developers responsible for an excavation site in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn were made aware that the north wall of the neighboring three-story apartment building, which collapsed on Wednesday, was in “poor” condition, according to city records.
A pre-construction inspection found "visible cracks" on three of the building's faces when officials visited in March. The findings have emerged as New York City officials work to understand more about the cause of the collapse, which left eight people dead and 17 injured.
"As I said yesterday evening, a tragedy of this magnitude demands a comprehensive and thorough investigation that includes both the construction site and the building which collapsed," New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a press conference Thursday afternoon. "That has already begun, with the Department of Buildings and Law Enforcement leading it.
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"We will find out what happened and we will share that information with New Yorkers," Mamdani said. "There are five main entities involved with this construction site who are associated with approximately 100 other sites across the city. Our Department of Buildings is commencing sweeps of those sites today."
The owner of the construction site was identified in city records as a limited liability company run by Robert Fischman and his associates. Fischman had sent a letter to adjoining buildings about the construction, with the phone number on the letter linked to Berkoff Supplies, a hardware store in Brooklyn.
Newsweek reached out to Fischman via the phone number, leaving a voicemail, and an email address associated with the store, but did not receive a response before publication.
The engineer that applied for the excavation permit, LMW Engineering Group, was contacted by email on Thursday morning.
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What Planning, Buildings Documents Showed
The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) told Newsweek that it issued a stop-work order for the site during the demolition phase on March 20, 2026, after finding that work was happening without adequate overhead protections at neighboring properties, such as sheds and netting.
A follow-up inspection on April 23 found that work had resumed, violating the DOB order. The concerns were then addressed, and work was allowed to continue on May 8.
A pre-construction inspection of 2625 Bedford Avenue in March found that the neighboring building at 1321 Flatbush Avenue had “visible cracks” in its north, west and east facades, as well as the sidewalk. Only the roof was in “good” condition, while the west and east facades were assessed as “fair” despite the cracks, visible in photos included in the report.
The “poor” conditions of the north facade indicated a “wide range of major deficiencies noted,” the inspection report reads.
The report was submitted as part of the application for the developers’ not-yet-approved plan for a nine-story building to rise on 2625 Bedford Avenue. That plan is still pending, as the city has only approved development of a three-story building.
It is not yet known what caused the collapse of the building.
City records list a limited liability company run by Fischman and his associates as the owner of the excavation site. The company is seeking to build a 56,000 square-foot mixed-use building, including a grocery store on the ground floor and eight additional stories of residential apartments, for a total of 64 units.
A one-story building had previously been on the excavation site before it was fully demolished last year.
Developers’ excavation permits were approved by the city on September 9, though Commissioner Ahmed Tigani told several local news media that excavation was associated with an approved three-story building, while plans for a nine-story mixed-use building had not yet been approved.
New York City's buildings commissioner said workers had been excavating on the site in the hours leading up to the collapse of 1321 Flatbush Avenue. It has not been confirmed that the excavation caused the building to collapse, but the site is under investigation.
According to the building application, workers wanted to dig down a maximum of 14 feet on the excavation site. The Department of Buildings said that a full stop-work order has now been issued for the site, as city records confirm.
A complaint filed with the Department of Buildings on Wednesday and seeking an investigation into the excavation site points toward the support of excavation (SOE) drawings showing “a cut extending approximately 8 feet below the adjacent property grade, with a 45-degree cut slope. My concern is that the subcontractor may have excavated too much of the area along the neighboring foundation at once,” the complaint reads.
“At the stepped footings, the excavation should have progressed in short sections, in the sequence shown on the approved SOE drawings, to limit how much of the adjacent foundation was exposed at any one time. Please compare the approved drawings with the work performed in the field. In particular, please verify whether the 45-degree slope was maintained, whether the stepped footings were excavated in the required sequence, and how the subcontractor accounted for the reported sandy soil and high groundwater. I believe the collapse may have been preventable.”
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Children Among Those Killed in Building Collapse
The building that collapsed just after 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, 1321 Flatbush Avenue, was a three-story building built in 1930 with a commercial space on the ground floor and four apartments inside.
At least eight people were killed in the collapse—six adults and two children—and 18 others were injured, Mamdani said Thursday. The wall of an adjacent three-story building was sheared off in the incident.
"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. "Let us continue to hold close those who have been plunged into unimaginable grief and pray for a full and rapid recovery for every New Yorker injured."
Heavy rain moved in Thursday morning, but the mayor and New York City Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said efforts to find any more survivors would not be stopped.
The commissioner said large chunks of debris were being removed carefully by machines as part of that process, while Mamdani said surrounding buildings had been ordered evacuated as a precaution.
Investigation Underway into Contractors
The DOB spokesperson told Newsweek that an investigation was underway into how the collapse had occurred. Officials were also looking into the five entities connected to the construction site.
Mamdani said around 100 sites across the city had been linked to those entities, with the DOB confirming it was conducting sweeps of these sites Thursday "in the interest of public safety."
The DOB said it was not releasing the names of those entities because they could lock up work sites, preventing officials from carrying out inspections.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Gray R. Thomas
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