ROOMS TO TOMBS
Owners hit with violations after basement deaths
Rajendra Shiv-Prasad (above) owns home on 183rd St. in Queens where flooding Wednesday killed Phamatee Ramskriet and her son Nicholas (left). The city on Friday said the property has building code violations.
Ten of the city’s storm drowning victims perished in illegally converted basement apartments, with the helpless tenants trapped by water pouring into their subterranean homes, the Department of Buildings said Friday.
Only one of the victims killed by floodwaters during the onslaught from Tropical Storm Ida resided in a legitimate apartment, said DOB Commissioner Melanie La Rocca. The Daily News reported that three of the apartments had a history of complaints before the horrific deaths of their tenants, who included an 84-year-old woman and a 14-month old boy.
“Inspectors have confirmed that five of the six properties where
New Yorkers tragically lost their lives during the floods were illegally converted cellar and basement apartments,” said LaRocca, adding inspectors were out Friday conducting safety inspections at more than 1,000 damaged city properties.
The owners of a Queens building where an octogenarian drowned in a flooded basement were cited within hours of her death for illegally leasing the designated storage space as an apartment, according to city authorities. LaRocca confirmed the basement was illegally converted.
A pair of certificate-of-occupancy violations were issued Thursday after the tragic death of Yue Lian Chen, found inside the flooded Elmhurst home shortly before midnight Wednesday by her worried son. Neighbors described a chaotic scene in which the victim initially couldn’t be found as water flooded local streets and then her subterranean home.
Two of the other Queens buildings where four tenants drowned in their basement homes also shared a history of DOB complaints, the Daily News found.
According to city records, the first complaints about using the Elmhurst space as an apartment date to 2012, when the building owner was cited in both April and August for illegal basement conversion. Two years earlier, DOB charged construction at the two-family house was going on without a permit, documents show.
There are also three active violations at the location, including one for failure to maintain the building to code dating to 2014.
Neighbors said the area was known for flooding, creating problems in the past.
One second-floor resident recalled the desperate and failed effort to find Chen once the basement filled with water, while his roommate was unaware anyone even lived down there until first responders appeared Wednesday.
“This is my first time confirming that we had a neighbor in the basement. I’ve never seen her,” said the roommate.
At 61-20 Grand Central Parkway, where resident Darlene Hsu was trapped in a flooded basement, DOB records show a still-unpaid $1,250 fine imposed last year for failure to maintain the residence to code.
In June 2020, there was a complaint against the building for the collapse of a retaining wall.
Hsu, 48, died in a freak accident while visiting the building super in his basement residence.
After he was called to check out the building’s pumps, the apartment flooded with such force that the water slammed the front door shut and trapped her inside, according to her ex-husband. She was found unconscious and died at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills hospital.
A third Queens residence where three people died in the basement had a long litany of violations and complaints regarding illegal conversions.
The building at 153-10 Peck Ave., adjacent to to Kissena Park, received a May 2017 violation for improper work on the cellar and second floor — illegally converting the space into small apartments and rooms, the DOB said.
Prior to that, four complaints were lodged in 2007 about illegally turning the basement and garage into single-occupancy rooms. Another five complaints over building conversions were lodged between 2000 and 2003, according to DOB.
NYPD divers recovered the corpses of the two women and a man from the still-flooded basement after the deadly Wednesday night storm.
Mayor de Blasio said that in addition to prioritizing basement evacuations in the future, the city intends to take a deeper look at the illegal conversations involved in this tragedy.
“There’s more to put together,” Hizzoner told reporters. “This is a really, really tough problem ... it’s going to take a while to sort out.”