{"id":349480,"date":"2026-09-17T18:38:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T18:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/349480\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T18:38:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T18:38:55","slug":"school-bus-smashes-into-crown-heights-apartment-building-displacing-26-people-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/349480\/","title":{"rendered":"School bus smashes into Crown Heights apartment building, displacing 26 people \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A school bus without students on board crashed through the front of a Crown Heights building on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-248841\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC_0458.jpg\" alt=\"crown heights bus crash\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\"  \/>The crash appeared to have seriously damaged the building facade. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-248843\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC_0455.jpg\" alt=\"crown heights bus crash\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\"  \/>Neighbors said it was a \u201cmiracle\u201d that no one was seriously hurt. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n<p>Surveillance footage published by <a href=\"https:\/\/brooklyn.news12.com\/school-bus-crashes-into-crown-heights-building\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">News12<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe 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,\u201d said nearby resident Al Mckevery,a retired bus driver. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The driver refused medical attention on the scene, and no other injuries were reported, per the NYPD.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-248844\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC_0989.jpg\" alt=\"bus crash\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\"  \/>The DOB issued a partial vacate order for the building. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-248835\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/DSC_1006.jpg\" alt=\"tow truck pulling crown heights bus\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\"  \/>A big rig tow truck was called to haul the truck out of the building. Photo by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The agency also ordered the building\u2019s owner to build a construction fence around the damaged part of the building \u201cin the interest of public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is an absolute miracle no one was seriously hurt or killed here,\u201d said Crown Heights resident Clare Paterson.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.checkbooknyc.com\/smart_search\/citywide?search_term=Jofaz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">active contracts<\/a> to transport public school students.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A school bus without students on board crashed through the front of a Crown Heights building on Thursday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,330,2214,102,24500,2823,2926,54581,130637,9,24,12,370,63,103,130638,3058],"class_list":["post-349480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-bus-crash","tag-crash","tag-crown-heights","tag-damage","tag-department-of-buildings","tag-doe","tag-eastern-parkway","tag-jofaz-transportation","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-nypd","tag-partial-vacate","tag-school-bus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}