A school bus without students on board crashed through the front of a Crown Heights building on Thursday morning.
The driver, a 65-year-old man, was headed westbound on Eastern Parkway at about 7:21 a.m. when he jumped the curb and smashed into the front of 869 Eastern Parkway, a four-story residential building at the corner of Albany Avenue, according to police.
The crash appeared to have seriously damaged the building facade. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell 
Neighbors said it was a “miracle” that no one was seriously hurt. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
Surveillance footage published by News12 appears to show the bus careening through the intersection, across the Eastern Parkway service road, and up into the building. There were no students on board at the time of the crash, per the NYPD.
“He panicked, he lost his cell phone, he hit a tree and lost his brakes, he had to be doing 40 or 50 miles an hour,” said nearby resident Al Mckevery,a retired bus driver. “The mechanics did excellent work this is September so they definitely checked this bus out, he came right through the middle. It sounded like a bomb went off.”
The driver refused medical attention on the scene, and no other injuries were reported, per the NYPD.
The DOB issued a partial vacate order for the building. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell 
A big rig tow truck was called to haul the truck out of the building. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
But the building appeared to have suffered significant damage. The Department of Buildings was on scene Thursday and issued a partial vacate order for the building, that impacted seven of eight total units. The American Red Cross registered 26 people for emergency relocation, according to the DOB, 20 adults and six children.
The agency also ordered the building’s owner to build a construction fence around the damaged part of the building “in the interest of public safety.”
“It is an absolute miracle no one was seriously hurt or killed here,” said Crown Heights resident Clare Paterson.
An investigation of the crash is ongoing. The Department of Education did not immediately clarify whether the bus was contracted by the city, though records show the company, Jofaz Transportation, has several active contracts to transport public school students.