Three Latin American immigrants living far from their families while eking out a living died Saturday in a blaze that swept the Brooklyn building where they rented rooms, authorities and neighbors said.
Two others were seriously hurt in the early-morning fire.
Four Dead, Several Hurt in Bronx, Brooklyn Fires
"They all lived alone, and I don't know if they were legal immigrants," said Ahmed Tebet, who works at the New Way Supermarket grocery store next door to the fire.
One victim jumped from a window to escape the blaze, and the other four were found unconscious in one room, firefighters said.
It took 60 firefighters about 40 minutes to get control of the blaze, which was reported shortly before 7 a.m. on the top floor of a two-story building on 18th Avenue near New Utrecht Avenue in Brooklyn's Bensonhurst neighborhood.
Ahmed Tebet, who works at the New Way Supermarket grocery store next door to the fire, said the building was occupied by single young men from Guatemala who worked in construction and house painting.
They lived above a 99 Cent Plus Store in an ethnically mixed neighborhood - Italian, Arabic and Hispanic - of mostly single-family homes.
In recent years, a new wave of Latin American immigrants have moved to the neighborhood, which for decades was mostly populated by working-class Italian-Americans. Many young workers get up before dawn to line 18th Avenue, Bensonhurst's main artery, and wait to be picked up by contractors' vans for day jobs, sending their meager earnings to families back home.
3 Die in Fire at Brooklyn Apartment
Residents and merchants in the neighborhood said the apartment had three or four bedrooms and housed as many as 10 Guatemalan workers.
Emilio Chavez, 30, an immigrant from Guatemala who lives about a block away, said he usually came out about 7 a.m. to look for work. In the winter, he said, he only works about two days a week. When it is warm, he said, he works nearly every day, usually making about $80 per day.
Mr. Chavez said the four-bedroom apartment where he lives in is usually occupied by nine or 10 men at a time.
“I worry about fires,” he said. “Yes, maybe my apartment catch fire, too.”
Photo from 1010WINS.
3 comments:
Wake up DOB - people are dying.
Prevent deaths - respond rapidly to complaints of non-permit renovations and conversions.
An illegal SRO or an carved out apartment with 10 individuals? Come on now - stop turning a blind eye save these folks from murderious landlords - shut these down already. Stop those people whom enslave and enrich themselfs off illegal immigrants. Do not condone this activity in your neighborhoods folks - prevent deaths of individuals whom are hiding in these hovels - it' not humane.
the neighborhood said the apartment had three or four bedrooms and housed as many as 10 Guatemalan workers.
“I worry about fires,” he said. “Yes, maybe my apartment catch fire, too.”
Here a guy who knows what could happen & is right. If you live next door to an illegally converted single family or SRO apartment it endangers you and your family and neighbors.
If those immigrant advocacy groups that crow affordable housing REALLY cared about immigrants, they would go out there and start a vigorous public campaign against this kind of explotaiton.
Doesn't take TOO much effort to uncover SCORES of situations.
They don't. Why?
Are the just a front for the real estate industry?
By running around saying affordable housing they:
1.throw out another bone to get the public on board with turning the city over to the developers (who can be AGAINST affordable housing?).
2. satisfy the funders of their little efforts (look em up the next time these shadowy groups show up in YOUR neighborhood asking for more units in YOUR backyard).
3. and of course, unlike the grassroots community activists, they will get LOTS of press coverage and even notice by the politicians!
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