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Immigrant victims in Brooklyn building collapse all had the same dream: A better life in the US

Leonard Greene, New York Daily News on

Published in News & Features

NEW YORK — The eight people killed in the tragic building collapse on a busy Brooklyn street corner on Wednesday all had one thing in common: they were all immigrants who had come to this country chasing a dream that ended in a tragic instant.

Some were undocumented. Some had been here for a few years. But they all had come to the U.S. to chart out a new future, build a better life, and stake a claim in their new home in New York City, heartbroken friends and family members said.

“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,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said of the eight people who died, including two children.

“We are mourning too many people who we loved,” he said.

Dreams dashed in a hail of debris

The collapse victims included José Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26, a construction worker with a wife about to give birth, and a 4-year-old son. Cosquillo emigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador about six years ago.

“José came to the United States from Ecuador with hopes and dreams of building a better future for himself and his family,” a GoFundMe created by the son’s teachers to support his family says. “He was a hardworking, loving, and devoted father who worked tirelessly to provide for the people he loved.”

“His wife is now facing the unimaginable heartbreak of losing her husband while preparing to welcome their newest child into the world without him by her side,” the fundraising site said.

Caguana Cosquillo, a soccer enthusiast who played with a local recreational team, was among six victims pronounced dead at the scene Wednesday afternoon after a three-story mix-use building at 1321 Flatbush Ave. collapsed and slid into an adjacent construction site, officials said.

When the building collapsed, it took the side wall of 1323 Flatbush Ave. with it, exposing the rooms inside, including a bedroom and closets filled with clothing.

Escaping a life of 'poverty and political instability'

Also among the dead are Mamadou Bhoye N’diaye, 31, and his cousin Mamadou Bhoye Barry, 23. Their roommate, Fatoumata Bah, who is pregnant, was pulled alive out of the rubble.

They all lived on the second floor of the collapsed building in an apartment facing the street and were immigrants from Guinea.

Bah’s husband had stepped out to buy groceries about five minutes before the collapse, leaving her and the two men who died in the apartment, said Mamadou Saliou Diallo, a Guinean community leader.

Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, D-Brooklyn, said the woman’s husband stood outside the rubble following the collapse, asking, “Where is my wife? Where is my wife?”

Barry, 23, a food delivery worker, was pulled from the rubble early Thursday and pronounced dead at the scene. He had been getting ready to work a night shift when the building collapsed, relatives said.

The body of his cousin N’Diaye, 31, an Amazon worker, had been discovered about an hour earlier. Relatives said he and other family members had come to the U.S. from Guinea, a West African nation, “to escape poverty and political instability.”

Two children taken in collapse

The youngest victims of Wednesday’s collapse were 9-year-old Nicole Daniela Rodriguez and her 10-year-old cousin Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez. Nicole’s father, Juan Daniel Sabala, 31, also died in the collapse. Sabala’s wife and 3-year-old daughter remain hospitalized. The family hails from Colombia.

“We have no words,” Sabala’s cousin Juan Carlos Zabala, who lives in Spain, told Gothamist by phone Friday. “They were following the American dream.”

The family arrived in the country three or four years ago. Sabala had been working for a cleaning company, his cousin said.

 

Zabala and his family were undocumented, the cousin added. When they weren’t working or going to school, they stayed inside the apartment, worried U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would grab them.

Also killed was construction worker Edgar Santiago Sapón Gutierrez, who came to New York City three years ago.

“My 26-year-old husband came to this country from Guatemala in search of a better future for our son and our family,” Sapon’s wife, Brenda Vasquez, said in a GoFundMe post on Saturday. “He was always a hardworking and responsible man, a loving father who was very devoted to his son.”

Relatives said collapse victim Gabriel Siguencia could have left the construction site early, but was putting in a few extra hours to make some more money to send back to his 4-year-old son and his wife in Ecuador.

“It is a sad day not only for the Ecuadorian community, but for many families here in New York City,” said Walter Sinche, of the International Ecuadorian Alliance. “That is why we’re here today not only in solidarity but also demanding that the authorities, the city officials to do more to protect our workers regardless of their immigration status.”

Massive investigation underway

The building where half the victims lived had been perched at the edge of the site at 2625 Bedford Ave., where a construction crew was building a proposed three-story building when the collapse occurred.

Construction crews had been in the excavation phase Wednesday when 1321 Flatbush Ave. collapsed, officials said.

Both the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and the city’s Department of Buildings were investigating what sparked the collapse.

“A tragedy of this magnitude demands a comprehensive and thorough investigation that includes both the construction site and the building which collapsed,” the mayor said.

As part of their investigation, city officials also conducted a sweeping inspection campaign of more than 100 construction sites across the city linked to those running the Bedford Avenue development.

“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,” Mamdani said Thursday.

All of the victims were crushed to death, the weight of the rubble they were buried under leaving them unable to breathe, autopsies performed by the City Medical Examiner’s Office showed.

“They were coworkers. They were cousins. They were roommates. They were sons. They were daughters. They were children,” New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin said at a news conference with relatives, survivors and elected officials.

Fourteen residents, including Bah, and four firefighters were hurt but survived. Most of them are in stable condition.

A Daily News review of records found that a contractor involved in the construction site had been cited by NYC for problems related to demolition at the Bedford Avenue location, including violating a stop-work order aimed at halting problematic work.

The records reviewed by the News also show the man behind the ownership of the collapsed building, Olufemi Falade, was once imprisoned for ignoring housing violations at his properties.

That building,1321 Flatbush Ave., which was adjacent to the construction site, had 98 open violations, including defective doors, unsafe electrical wiring, leaking ceilings, defective fire retardant material, and missing or malfunctioning smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, although it was not immediately clear if these violations led to the collapse.

As of Saturday, residents of 1323 Flatbush Ave. — which lost an exterior wall in the collapse — and of 1325, and 1327 Flatbush Ave. were still under orders to vacate, city officials said.


©2026 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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