Police confirmed that bomb threats targeting NYU-operated buses were unsubstantiated, and entrances to NYU buildings on Broadway between Washington Place and Waverly Place have reopened after briefly closing Thursday afternoon.

The threat, which paused pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the area for around 30 minutes, was posted on an app that allows community members to track university buses, just before 2 p.m. The bomb squad was deployed to where several NYU shuttles were parked, right outside Gallatin and Tisch buildings on Broadway, and found no explosives after scraping the buses for suspicious packaging, according to community updates on the app Citizen.  

In its third Campus Advisory notice regarding the incident, timestamped at 3 p.m., NYU said the New York City Police Department gave an “‘all clear’” to resume normal operations. The site is now cleared of caution tape and NYU’s shuttle services have resumed.

An NYPD precinct operator told WSN they could not provide additional information regarding the investigation.

“Disruption to our classes was minimal, but NYU is deeply troubled by the occurrence of yet another false threat of violence, which seems to be a growing national phenomenon,” university spokesperson John Beckman said in a statement to WSN. 

The threat comes five weeks after NYU administrators received a noncredible shooting manifesto threatening to open fire at Black members of the university community. Similar threats were received by several other U.S. universities on the same day, many of which initiated precautionary lockdowns. 

NYU did not respond to additional inquiries regarding the nature of the threat or platform on which it was received. The app Passio GO! is typically used to live track the university’s shuttles.

Contact Dharma Niles at [email protected].