Damaged Brooklyn school building deemed safe after earthquake, but gym will be closed

A public school in East New York sustained some damage to its gymnasium walls in the aftermath of Friday’s earthquake, but classes are expected to resume on Monday as city officials deemed the rest of the building safe.

Thel building, which is shared by the magnet middle school J.H.S. 218 James P. Sinnott and the School for Classics High School, is safe to use, according to an inspection by Department of Buildings officials and other city engineers.

The gym at 370 Fountain Avenue remains off limits after vertical and step-shaped cracks were found along the gym’s interior walls, prompting inspectors to issue a partial vacate order. Inspectors said the potential for bricks near the cracks to be dislodged made the gym unsafe.

Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, said school activities would forge ahead outside of the affected area.

“The Department of Buildings and our facilities team quickly inspected the building and DOB issued a partial vacate order for the gym, until repairs can be made — which we do not expect to take long,” Styer said in a statement on Saturday morning. “This was done out of an abundance of caution, and the Department of Buildings confirmed that the rest of the school was safe to use.”

Styer said the school will be updating families directly.

The earthquake, a rare occurrence for its magnitude within the New Jersey and New York region, did not bring with it reports of extensive damage, though dozens of Newark residents were evacuated after their homes were found to have structural damage.

Aftershocks are expected over the next week. By late Saturday morning, the United States Geological Survey put the risk of a 3+ magnitude aftershock at 74%, a 4+ magnitude at 14%, and 5+ at 1%, with the potential for higher magnitude aftershocks being lower.