NYPD Sergeant Jessica McRorie told the Globe at 5 p.m. that the bag, which was examined by a bomb squad, was deemed safe.

The backpack was found near the entrance to a Nike Town store in the building, according to the Associated Press.

People were rushed out of Trump Tower in New York City on Tuesday afternoon as police investigated a suspicious package, which turned out to be a bag of children’s toys.

An e-mail from a WPIX TV news desk worker sent to the White House transition pool list reported that numerous police and fire crews were responding to Trump Tower after the bag was discovered.


A fire department official said fire crews were standing by on scene, but could not release any other information.

A witness told the AP that the crowd was “evacuated very quickly. It was hysteria.”

“Police were shouting and telling people to leave,” said Andy Martin, a 16-year-old from the New York City suburb of Huntington who was in Manhattan with family, according to the AP.

Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida on Tuesday.

Trump Tower, in addition to being the president-elect’s home and business headquarters, contains residences, restaurants, retail stores — and a lobby that by law is open to the public to visitors daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Police receive about 42 reports every day of so-called suspicious packages, though that number can surge depending on current events. In the days after a pressure cooker bomb exploded earlier this year in New York City, police responded to more than 800 calls of ‘‘suspicious packages.’’

The following video appeared to show the evacuation in progress:

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.