Displaced residents of a building that partially collapsed in the Bronx on Monday afternoon recalled a slew of unsavory and unsafe conditions in their apartments, including rats, leaks, and visible cracks in the walls.
“For years we reported, we made so many reports … because the walls inside, I wish I could show you pictures, were just crumbling,” said Melina Ricart, 29, who grew up in the first-floor unit her family evacuated as the seven-story building in Morris Heights began to collapse around them.
Officials say there were no fatalities and only minor injuries so far. The Bronx district attorney is investigating the collapse, along with the city’s fire and building departments.
Scores of people were displaced on a frigid December night, though, and are unsure where to go next. Many say they’d long feared some sort of catastrophe.
Ricart and others described a variety of problems that had made them feel unsafe for years, as they stood just down the street Tuesday morning watching emergency workers and construction crews assess the wreckage of their homes.
She remembered constant leaks, even when residents did simple daily chores.
“It would come through the walls … everything would get flooded and it was always like, ‘Oh my God, I was just taking a shower. Oh my God, I was just running my washing machine,’” recalled Ricart, who no longer lives in the building.
Miriam Rodriguez, 63, is another first-floor resident who lives on the other side of the building from the collapse.
“Look, this building, you pushed the wall and it would make a hole,” she said in Spanish. “It was a total disaster. So then you would tell the super, ‘I have some damage,’ and he would make a joke out of it.”
After complaints were filed, it would take two or three weeks before anyone came to address the issues, Rodriguez said.
“And rats…,” she trailed off, shaking her head. “In one week, my son killed 15. This big,” she said, spreading her hands. “In my apartment. With those rats … sometimes I’d get up onto my bed and not come down.”
Second-floor resident Narciso Tejada, 52, said there was no one to talk to when he complained about conditions that made him feel unsafe in his apartment.
“This building had a lot of problems,” Tejada told Gothamist in Spanish. “About a month ago, my heat got up to 98 degrees. And my TV broke, and a pipe exploded, and water came through the walls.”
“I tried to communicate with the landlord in both languages, English and Spanish, and he didn't answer me at all,” he added.
Tejada said the lack of communication became so frustrating that he stopped paying rent, thinking he might finally be able to come face-to-face with the landlord in court.
“But he never appeared until this situation happened,” Tejada said.
Though he didn’t live in one of the apartments that collapsed, he said he’d long worried about the building’s structural soundness because of the “constant leak of water.” Just last week, he said, part of the ceiling in the lobby had fallen off, leading the super to patch it up.
“Water penetrating the bricks and everything would make the material soft,” Tejada said.
The superintendent, Felix Vargas, was not immediately reachable Tuesday. Gothamist spoke with his daughter, Lisbeth Vargas, by phone.
“Anything that was reported, my father followed up with,” she said. “Anything that happened with the collapse was not related to small things that a super can fix.”
“It’s an old building, but nothing that would cause the building to collapse,” she continued. “My father was also living in the building and he was affected, my sister lost her room.”
Briefly reached by phone Tuesday morning, building owner David Kleiner told Gothamist he did not know the cause of the collapse and was trying to find new housing for residents.
Tenants have complained on numerous occasions about conditions at the nearly century-old building and have even sued Kleiner’s company, 1915 Realty LLC, to force repairs and fix lead paint peeling from the walls, according to building and court records.
The city’s housing department has hit the landlord with more than 100 housing code violations at the complex in recent years. Tenants made at least three heat outage complaints over the past month, city records indicate.
Residents said they were shocked when the walls actually started coming down around them.
“At first, I thought the sound was the wind, because the breeze makes noise,” recalled Rodriguez, who said she escaped her home of three decades in Crocs and the clothes on her back. “But after that I heard everyone yelling and running, and I opened my door to see what it was, and I saw all this.”
Tejada said he thought the vibrations he felt were from a construction crew that was working with jackhammers in the bodega downstairs. When he felt vibrations elsewhere, though, he knew something was very wrong.
“It was collapsing. So I grabbed my daughter, I grabbed my coat, and we came out to the street,” he said. “When I checked around, I realized what happened.”
Melina Ricart, whose family escaped the collapse.
Ricart said her father, who owns the first-floor apartment right above the bodega, wasn’t home when the walls started coming down. But her aunt and uncle were — and luckily jumped up and left as soon as they heard rumbling.
Unable to go back into the building, residents told Gothamist they’d spent the night with family members nearby and that the Red Cross had brought others to a hotel.
The city’s Office of Emergency Management opened a reception center Tuesday morning at Bronx Community College for anyone affected by the collapse, according to an email viewed by Gothamist.
But Ricart said her 76-year-old father, unsure of where to go, spent the night in his car. She carried a duffle bag full of clothes for him and said she was concerned about finding long-term housing.
“Now my dad is homeless because of this,” she said. “I cried all night just thinking about all the families that are going to be displaced like that. It's not even fair.”
Ricart said her father still works as a taxi driver and she feels that he and many others who’ve lived in the building for decades won’t be able to afford high rents elsewhere.
“I just hope that they do the right thing for them and at least relocate them to a nice — or stable — apartment, at least, because they've had these leases since the ‘80s,” she said. “They can't even afford $800 [a month in] rent. What makes you think that they can afford to pay $2,000 in these new buildings?”
While residents said they’re grateful only two minor injuries were reported as a result of the collapse, the emotional losses are just starting to be felt.
“They lost Everything. My aunt just became a U.S. citizen. All her papers are in the rubble,” Ricart said. “Everything, everything is gone.”
David Brand contributed reporting.
