‘TRAGEDY WAITING’
Fire at Kingsbury tower raises questions about safety >>
TRENTON >> A three-alarm fire at Kingsbury Towers destroyed a second-floor apartment and forced firefighters to evacuate the west building Tuesday afternoon.
Residents credited firefighters’ quick response for averting the loss of life and more destruction on an old, failing high-rise they feel is susceptible to going up in flames at any moment.
Firefighters responded to the blaze about 12:45 p.m. and saw fire shooting out of the windows, said Todd Willever, a battalion chief at the Trenton Fire Department who was on scene.
The 19-floor high-rise, constructed in the 1970s, isn’t equipped with fire sprinklers, Willever said, but fire blocks in the walls prevented the blaze from spreading.
City leaders and those who live at complex worry another fire at the apartment complex, which caters to low-income and residents who are “55 and over,” could be devastating.
They say complaints to management, The Gershen Group, about deteriorating and dangerous conditions have fallen on deaf ears.
“It’s really scaring me now because some of the maintenance that had to happen has been deferred for so long,” said Algernon Ward, a North Ward resident who ran for a seat on the City Council in the last election. “Had those people been trapped in the above floors, we don’t have a way to get them out of there. None of those ladders are going to reach up there. This is tragedy waiting to happen.”
Multiple fire companies responded to the inferno at the high-rise complex in the area of Market and New Warren streets near the Mercer County Criminal Courthouse.
Emergency officials redirected traffic in the streets surrounding the towers as firefighters battled the fire and initiated the evacuation.
The east tower building wasn’t affected by the blaze, which broke out on the second floor of the west tower.
Smoke quickly rose up to higher levels, making it hard for residents to breath and find their way to the exits.
Some opened windows while others fought through the thick, billowing smoke to find their way out.
Elevators in the buildings have been down for a couple weeks, residents said, as firefighters hoofed up flights of stairs to rescue those who were unable to escape the building on their own.
Even the 12th floor had the presence of “really thick” smoke, according to one resident, and many of the higher level floors were covered in soot from the smoke rising, residents said.
The inferno destroyed a second-floor apartment, where officials believe the fire originated, but it was contained and did not spread beyond that second-floor apartment, according to fire officials.
They added the integrity of the building wasn’t compromised.
Willever said the secondfloor apartment appeared “burned out” and uninhabitable.
The fire marshal was investigating the cause of the blaze, fire director Derrick Sawyer said late Tuesday night. He expected it would take a couple of days for investigators to determine the cause.
He said the department’s timely response minimized damage as firefighters were able to “catch the fire before it went into flashover.”
No one was severely injured in the blaze but several residents were treated for smoke inhalation, Willever said, as the fire department “systematically evacuated” the west tower.
Still, residents complained a number of elderly residents, some of them are unable to walk on their own, remained “trapped” inside the high-rise complex on the higher floor levels.
Relatives frantically called them to check on them.
One woman said her 58-year-old wheelchairbound brother was stuck on the seventh floor. He later emerged from the building, crying and trembling from the traumatic experience.
Willever said the fire department had evacuated all 19 floors of the west tower by around 2 p.m. Tuesday with the exception of a few apartments that had residents who were told to shelter in place.
One resident said he was visiting his girlfriend on the third floor when he noticed a black cloud coming from under the door. He went to the stairwell and was greeted by a wall of acrid smoke.
“I smelled it. I seen it. I tasted it,” the man, who didn’t want his name used, said. “It was jet black. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.”
He waited for 10 to 15 minutes inside his girlfriend’s apartment, waiting for the smoke to subside. When it didn’t get better, the resident put a wet towel over his face and raced down the stairs, taking in smoke as he made his way to safety.
After the blaze was under control, firefighters set up large, industrial-sized fans at each of the exits to clear out smoke from the building.
Gathered outside in the freezing temperatures, residents talked among themselves and to this newspaper about how the fire should serve as a forewarning for officials of the potential for disaster.
Ward called the Kingsbury Towers, which has had a number of highly publicized incidents in recent years, a “death trap,” urging city officials to take action to make conditions safer for residents.
Residents said they have bitterly complained about management’s slow or nonexistent efforts to update and repair conditions inside the outdated buildings.
Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson, who oversees the North ward and lives in the Mill Hill neighborhood that is within walking distance of the Kingsbury Towers, didn’t know about the fire until she was contacted by The Trentonian.
“There was a fire?” asked Caldwell-Wilson, who until just recently was a member of the Kingsbury Towers’ Board of Trustees.
In recent years, residents have taken to calling the Kingsbury Towers a “death dungeon.”
Sawyer said one step city officials can take to increase safety at Trenton’s residential high rises is to mandate they all be retrofitted with fire sprinklers.
He said most cities mandate sprinklers in newly built high rises but many don’t require them in older residential buildings.
The former Philadelphia fire commissioner said the City of Brotherly Love required commercial buildings, but not residential
buildings, to be retrofitted with sprinklers in the wake of the deadly 1991 One Meridian Plaza which killed three firefighters.
He said he was in “favor” of city officials taking up the safety measure but admitted it could be costly for building owners.
Many cities have successful deployed the safety measure by giving owners a grace period, sometimes as many as eight years, to comply with a fire sprinkler mandate.
Sawyer said such safety measures don’t usually gain steam in the community until there is a tragedy.
“You don’t get that momentum until someone dies in the fire,” he said. “I would definitely be in favor of implementing it. It not only protects the community but it protects your firefighters.”
Caldwell-Wilson, who said she resigned from her post on the Kingsbury board just last month following decades of service, called the Board of Trustees “effective” and said it worked diligently to address residents’ concerns about the buildings.
Those issues mounted over the years.
Last May, a flood washed out dozens of residents in the east tower. The flood, caused by a pipe break, soaked carpets, floors and ceiling tiles and resulted in extensive damage.
In 2017, Kingsbury Towers was cited for having a broken elevator that prevented first responders from reaching 42-year-old Shontae Ellis on the 15th floor, where she was suffering from cardiac arrest.
The state had cited apartment management over the broken elevator four days before Ellis’ death.
Caldwell-Wilson said many problems cropped up when the “building started aging.”
“There were breakdowns getting it up to par,” she said. “Those buildings very old, and they have to make a decision on what they want to do.”
Cheryl Covington, whose family members who live in the high-rise, said she wants the apartment complex to be permanently shuttered.
“Tear it down. You see how Miller Homes went down cause all their code violations. You know how many code violations that they getting’ away with in this building? A lot,” she said. “You gotta get tough on these landlords. This building needs to be condemned. Demolition teams. Boom! Make it a parking lot for the courthouses. Give these people a fair chance in life! Shut it the hell down!
Representatives at the Lawrence Township-based Gershen Group did not respond to a message seeking comment on the fire or the dangerous conditions residents said persist at the complex.
Rather than engage those issues head-on, the management group has appeared to avoid them or even try to hide them.
The Trentonian was unable to interview one resident who invited a reporter into her home, out of the cold, to talk about her experiences living at Kingsbury.
A man who identified himself as “a police officer here” blocked the entrance to the west tower telling a reporter he wasn’t allowed in the building.
Residents identified the man as a security guard employed at the complex.
“You can talk to her across the street. This is private property. He’s a reporter,” the man informed an actual police officer. “Private property. You have to go.”