The dirty half dozen
Murder raps eyed in East Village blast
Investigators are looking at potential murder charges in the deadly East Village explosion, sources told The Post yesterday. Three of the six possible targets include the building’s landlord, her son and a contractor.
Good riddance! East Village neighbors of the women who filed a $ 40 million lawsuit over the March 26 gas blast called their claims laughable on Tuesday — and said the only thing they agree with is that the two are not cut out to live in the Big Apple.
“It’s just so appalling. It’s really galling,” said graphic designer Andy Reynolds, 53, who lives a block from the blast site.
Jeremiah Moss, an East Village resident who runs the popular blog Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, blamed their behavior on a sense of “entitlement” he has seen among the community’s newer residents.
“All of us in the East Village were traumatized by what happened,” he told The Post. “But things happen, and this didn’t really happen to them. It happened to other people, people who lost their lives, lost their homes, their families, their pets, all of their belongings. People who aren’t going to be able to have a home after this.”
On Monday, Lucie Bauermeister, 23, and Anna Ramotowska, 26, filed a suit in Bronx Supreme Court, claiming they were “severally injured, both physically and mentally” by the East Village explosion.
Their building reopened on March 28, but Bauermeister complained the smell of smoke was so “putrid” she didn’t want to sleep there.
Ramotowska said she got “like, five or six scratches” when she went outside to inspect the blast. Bauermeister didn’t suffer any physical injuries — but did say she is seeing a $ 175anhour psychologist to deal with the trauma.
They’re both leaving the big city for the South.
East Village residents were less than sympathetic with the duo.
“It’s that kind of mindset of these people who are coming into the neighborhood that are ruining the neighborhood,” said Reynolds, an East Village resident since 1991.
He argued that, since they were subletting, they could easily just find a new place to live.
“I hope they get a hardboiled New York judge who’s like, ‘ Really? Try it on another fool,’ and tosses the suit,” he said.
Consultant Matt Ninnemann, 31, who also lives a block from the explosion, agreed that “[ it] sounds like someone who’s been looking for an excuse for a long time to make some cash and found it.”
Child psychiatrist Diane Mclean, 58, who lived at 45 East 7th St. for 35 years before it was destroyed in the explosion, could only say, “Wow,” when she learned of the suit.
“I would absolutely go back if I could,” she said. “No matter what.”