After 17 people died in a Bronx inferno 12 months ago, fire investigators blamed a space heater and broken fire doors.
Residents on the third floor of 333 East 181st Street, known as Twin Parks North West, were trying to keep warm when the heater sparked the fire. If their apartment door had automatically shut as it should have done, the deadly smoke might have been confined to their apartment.
But the door stayed open and smoke rose up the public stairwell like a chimney, choking residents to death on floors far removed from the actual flames.
After the tragedy, the city’s housing inspectors put a greater emphasis on fire safety – especially self-closing doors. In 2022, New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development says it issued 37,917 violations for broken fire doors. That is a 52 percent increase over 2021.
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Buried in those thousands of violations are a handful of tickets for faulty fire doors issued to seven buildings that are wholly or partially owned by the same investors behind the Twin Parks highrise. According to inspection records, in the twelve months after the deadly fire, city housing officials issued at least 40 notices of violation for malfunctioning self-closing doors to those seven buildings, including twenty-seven problem doors at 355 East 184th Street.
Zelma McNeill, a longtime tenant of 355 East 184th Street, said the tickets for broken fire doors worry her, along with temperatures that sometimes dip so low in her building that she feels the need to use space heaters to stay warm.
“They tell us, do not use our ovens or stoves. Do not use space heaters. If we don’t do that we would freeze," McNeill said.
According to HPD records, since the deadly fire last January, there have been at least 100 complaints about cold apartments from tenants in buildings that share ownership with the Twin Parks tower.
James Yolles, a spokesperson for Camber Property Group, one of the investors behind Twin Parks, said complaints about heat and self-closing doors are addressed immediately by the property owners.
"Any building more than 40 years old in New York City requires constant maintenance and vigilance, and all of our properties are equipped with multiple computerized heat sensors throughout the buildings,” Yolles said.
Yolles stressed that only 13 of the 40 fire door violations issued to the Twin Parks owners are still open violations.
"We constantly monitor our heating systems and self-closing doors, and strongly encourage any residents experiencing any issues to report them to management immediately," Yolles said.
Last year, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx), who represents the district where the fatal fire unfolded, sponsored and passed legislation that would allow the Federal Fire Administration to help local fire officials investigate major fires. Torres says he is now planning to push a bill that would tighten the rules on federal rental assistance.
"I'm seeking legislation that would enable the city to withdraw Section 8 support from landlords who fail to comply with fire safety rules," Torres said. "You have to hit them where it hurts, which is in their pocketbooks.”
According to a recent report by the NYC Comptroller's Office, there are 1,077 New York City buildings that are plagued by persistent complaints about lack of heat. Most of them are in communities of color. That report called for tougher enforcement from HPD.
Adolfo Carrion, Jr., the city's HPD Commissioner, said enforcement has increased.
"As a city, we're implementing new laws and measures to better ensure New Yorkers are safe from the spread of deadly smoke and fire, including stronger enforcement and educational efforts around self-closing doors and space heater safety," Carrion said.
Last year, Gov. Hochul signed a bill that requires space heaters sold in the state to have automatic shut-offs.
Maimouna Sylla, who lost two of her young cousins when they died in the Twin Parks fire, said the investors who own shares of that building - and several other residential complexes - should re-evaluate their priorities.
“They are investing into these buildings so they should really be like, 'is my money going to something good?'," Sylla said. "If they’re not giving us heat and things like that, then it’s like, 'should I really be invested in it?'"
