‘THIS SHOULD’VE BEEN PREVENTED’
Displaced residents experience sorrow, anger in Bronx fi re aftermath
BY ROBBIE SEQUEIRA
For nearly 52 years, the Twins
Parks North West complex defi ned
the skyline of the Fordham Heights
section of the Bronx. On Sunday, the
building was still standing but its
charred exterior and smashed windows
defi ned an afternoon of great
trauma — loss of life, damage and
home.
From loss to hopelessness to anger,
displaced tenants of the now-tattered
Twin Parks North West complex —
the 19-fl oor high-rise apartment complex
that was the center of a deadly
fi re — are grappling with a range of
emotions in the aftermath of one of
the deadliest fi res in New York City’s
history.
It took the fi repower of roughly
200 fi refi ghters to extinguish a blaze
that started at 10:54 a.m on Jan. 9,
but quickly extended throughout
the structure transforming it into a
fi ve-alarm inferno that engulfed the
second and third fl oors of the building.
For the residents of Twins Parks
North West, their course of action was
limited due to the heavy smoke. Some
jumped out of their windows to safety,
many were hospitalized for smoke inhalation,
and, tragically, 17 perished,
including nine children, as a result of
the blaze.
Dozens of tenants still remain
hospitalized throughout the city and
Westchester “fi ghting for their lives,”
with one Bronx area nurse telling the
Bronx Times, she “wanted to quit” her
11-year career as a nurse after having
to witness two deceased children from
the fi re. More than 100 families are
homeless, with very little direction or
timetables for when they might be rehoused.
As the city rallied around displaced
tenants hoping to rebuild,
neighbors and most, if not all, lost a
piece of what they consider a home
on Sunday. On Monday, FDNY offi -
cials pointed to malfunctions in both
a space heater and a faulty self-closing
apartment door that caused the initial
fi re to break out on the building’s
third fl oor.
According to fi re offi cials, there
were several space heaters inside
the duplex apartment where the fi re
started, and one of those heaters was
reportedly left on for days.
But some residents aren’t pointing
fi ngers at space heaters or residents
who used them, but rather the lack of
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, J 6 JAN. 14-20, 2022 BTR
follow-through from building management
to address a litany of quality-oflife
violations raised by Twins Parks
North West tenants over the years.
“This should’ve been prevented,”
said Yusupha Hamza, 39, who immigrated
to the Bronx from the Gambia
in 2017 to live in the building’s fourthfl
oor apartment. “But instead, I could
hear mothers crying out for their babies
to be saved, the smell of smoke
won’t ever leave my nose, and really
good people lost loved ones and some
lost the place they call home.”
The 52-year-old building is owned
by Bronx Park Phase III Preservation
LLC, which is comprised of a consortium
of developers — Belveron Partners,
the LIHC Investment Group
and The Camber Property Group. A
spokesperson told the Bronx Times
on Monday that, while all doors in the
complex are self-closing, there were
“no open violations or complaints related
to self-closing doors at the property.”
One of the co-founders of The Camber
Property group, Rick Gropper was
appointed to Mayor Eric Adams’ transition
team for housing issues before
the Brooklyn Democrat took offi ce
this year.
In 2o17, when an apartment fi re
in the Belmont section of the Bronx
killed 13 people, it necessitated requirements
for self-closing doors that
open into corridors or stairways for
apartment buildings, hotels, nursing
homes and other multiple-dwelling
units. Owners were required to install
such doors by this past July.
However, there were instances in
both 2017 and 2019, according to violations
fi led with the city Department
of Housing Preservation and Development
that some automatic self-closing
doors — which is a requirement for
adherence to fi re code — did not work.
A few residents told the Bronx
Times both on Sunday and Monday
that they don’t think either of the
building’s self-closing doors have a
functional door-stopper that would’ve
kept the door to the apartment where
the fi re originated shut.
If functional, fi re safety experts
say that the self-closing doors help
curb the spread of a fi re. But as residents
evacuated a building that billowed
with fi re and smoke within an
hour of igniting, that door where the
fi re started remained ajar amid the
frantic evacuation, allowing the fi re
FDNY fi refi ghters administer oxygen to a victim of the fi ve-alarm fi re in the Fordham Heights
section of the Bronx that captured the eyes of the nation on Jan. 9. Photo | Lloyd Mitchell
Photo | Adrian Childress