Eric: I wasn’t blaming fire vics when I said shut doors
Mayor Adams said Friday his offer of fire safety advice was not meant to blame the tenants of a Bronx apartment that erupted in flames and smoke that killed 17 people on Sunday — and he vowed to investigate the landlords of the building where the blaze broke out.
“The blame was not pointed towards the tenants,” he said.
The day after the blaze, Adams admonished New Yorkers to “close the door, close the door” when a fire breaks out in their building.
Adams offered the advice after Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said two open doors, one to the apartment where the fire started and another on the 15th floor, allowed smoke to spread quickly throughout the building, resulting in the fatalities.
Adams said Friday that by repeating advice often offered by the Fire Department he didn’t mean to point a finger at the victims.
“This is not to blame or traumatize that family,” he said. “I was very clear with it. That seemed to have been missed in my communication. It’s about informing, because any day we could have another fire.”
He promised a thorough investigation of the building landlords, one of which, Rick Groper, sits on his transition team.
Groper is the co-founder of the Camber Group, which owns part of the 121-unit Twin Parks North West complex at 331 E. 181st St. in Fordham Heights, where the blaze occurred.
“There’s a lot that landlords have to learn, as we are going to dig into these inspections, and hotlines if the doors are not closing automatically,” he said.
The building had self-closing doors required by law — but Nigro said at least one door “wasn’t functioning as it should.”
Nigro blamed the fire on a malfunctioning space heater left on in an apartment for several days.
Sunday’s blaze was the deadliest in the city since 1990, when an arsonist set fire to the Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx, killing 87 people.
As the mayor defended himself and vowed to get to the bottom of the fire, politicians unveiled bills aimed at preventing similar tragedies.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and others introduced a package in Congress that would require
landlords of federally subsidized buildings to install self-closing doors to protect apartments.
Torres said he also wants all federally subsidized housing units to have “a heat sensor that will enable real-time monitoring and reporting of heating levels in an apartment.”
“The use of space heaters is often a cry for help, and a cry for heat,” the congressman said.
“It is time to bring housing code and enforcement into the 21st century,” Torres said. He vowed to “turn up the heat on landlords who deny heat to their tenants.”
Torres would also require space heaters to have automatic safety shut-off switches.
The reform bill comes as the Bronx Gambian community prepares for a mass funeral service for 15 of the victims in the blaze. The Fordham Heights building had become a de facto center point for immigrants from the African nation.
The Islamic Cultural Center on E. 166th St. in Concourse Village will hold Janaza, a Muslim funeral prayer, for 15 victims on Sunday.
Adams said he hopes that everyone learns something from the tragedy, and that his instruction to close doors when a fire breaks out was meant to “empower everyday people with information.”
“I am clear that all of us must be empowered to prevent an incident like this from occurring again,” he said. “That includes city agencies, landlords — everyone must play a role.
“This was a horrific experience, and I don’t want this to happen again. Just as we learn from the Happy Land fire, we’re going to learn from this incident.”
Adams also announced Friday that the victims of the fire would receive gift cards for $2,550, money collected through the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York and donated by Bank of America and the Met Council.