Friday, February 9, 2007

House Fire Update

There were 15 people living in that house on 73rd Street in Brooklyn that had the fatal fire yesterday morning. It appears that a space heater was to blame. How 15 people fit into that little house is a good question. And now we have an answer:

The city Buildings Department yesterday issued owner Fatima Habbas a violation for allowing the cellar to be used as an apartment, sources said.

NY Post: FIRE KILLS TOTS

Photo from Newsday

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

We seem to have a lot of sirens going off lately in Astoria. Rumor has it that the compromised grid, patched together last summer, is now under stress from all those illegally converted basement heaters.

People are also miffed that the new housing going up has electric heating.

WTF is going on here? Who is in charge of our community? We need something of substance on these issues - the public is tired of finger pointing to Con Ed.

Anonymous said...

People are getting killed in these homes.

What is needed is a highly publicized class action lawsuit to the City of New York for not enforcing codes.

Anonymous said...

Many of these people are immigrants. Why is there not an immigrant advocacy group that is trying to get immigrants out of illegally converted homes that are endangering their lives?

Anonymous said...

These dormatories, that are going up in flame,s are the answers to affordable housing in Queens that Mayor Mike & Co. are promising us!

Anonymous said...

The DOB, Queens BP, and Housing Court judges could care less. That is the unfortunate reality.

Anonymous said...

Well, previous poster, that stands in stark contrast to the spin coming out of borough hall.

Perhaps the next time we are hit with this constant stream of immigrant rant, perhaps we should ask the speaker what they are doing to get immigrants out of basements apartments and into a safe work environment.

You know, do something useful instead of the usual condescending paternalistic cant.

Anonymous said...

Answer this question:

What has the DOB and the Housing Court proactively done to mitigate the "problem?"