The explosion leveled two apartment buildings located just north of 116th Street at 1644 and 1646 Park Avenue,[2] killing eight people, injuring at least 70 others, and displacing 100 families.

[2][7] In June 2015, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) blamed the explosion on failures by Consolidated Edison and the city.

NTSB Board member Robert Sumwalt also revealed that the gas main buried under Park Avenue near the scene at 116th Street dated back 127 years, to 1887.

[13] In on-the-fly television interviews, witnesses described feeling the force of the blast from blocks away, and entire buildings shaking as though it were an earthquake; windows were blown out in adjacent properties.

Morning television shows on the major city networks were preempted in favor of nonstop news coverage of the explosion and its aftermath.

[15] Two fire companies, quartered in an FDNY firehouse located approximately five blocks to the south, reported hearing and feeling the effects of the massive explosion and alerted the department's dispatch office.

[16] The American Red Cross in Greater New York was on the scene and helping those displaced, but otherwise not requiring emergency medical services, using nearby Public School 57 as a makeshift center before MTA buses transported them to a Salvation Army shelter at 125th Street.