A man died when flames roared through a single-family Bronx house that was illegally divided into 17 tiny apartments rented cheap to low-income people, said city officials and building residents.
Flames erupted around 2 p.m. Friday in the three-story home on Grand Ave. between W. 190th and W. 192nd Sts. in the Fordham neighborhood.
“It had heavy fire on it. We had fire on three floors, and the attic,” said FDNY Deputy Chief William McCormack.
Firefighters found the dead man in the building’s attic, but they were not sure he lived there as the space did not appear “liveable,” McCormack said.
But the dead man did live in the attic — he bedded down on an air mattress there, said another tenant in the building.
“That’s where he lived. He worked at a car wash,” said the tenant, who did not give his name. “He was a good, hardworking guy.”
McCormack said that even though the building was already divided into a number of small spaces, its owner was in the process of building more. The new construction may have been where the blaze started, he said.
“It’s all rented rooms,” said the tenant. “We’ve lived there for years. The rents are from $200, $250, to $300 a month.”
City officials had been told that the building was divided into many separate apartments.
A complaint on the Department of Buildings website in February 2021 states that a resident of the building reported living in what he believed was an illegal basement apartment.
“He was not aware that it was illegal when it was rented to him,” the Buildings Department record says.
Similar complaints were made about the building in 2018, 2011 and 2008, Buildings Department records show.
Buildings Department officials say they are investigating, and that “additional enforcement actions are pending that investigation.”
The Red Cross has offered emergency shelter to the building’s residents, the Buildings Department said.
