Damaged Doors Posing Fire Risks Plague Thousands of Buildings

January 27, 2022 Greg B. Smith and Suhail Bhat, THE CITY

Residents of a unit inside 246 E. 199th St. said their door did not automatically close. Photo by Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

‘Russian Roulette’

Last week THE CITY visited the aging 99-year-old building, where one-bedrooms rent for around $1,000 a month and three bedrooms go for around $2,200. Going floor to floor, THE CITY found several self-closing apartment doors — all of which are painted fire-engine red — that did not self-close.

The door to one second-floor unit had no knob or lock and was partially open, held in place by a clasp and a padlock. A third-floor unit door was misaligned with the frame and remained slightly ajar with a one-inch gap.

At another third-floor apartment — one HPD tagged as in violation six months ago — the door hung open by about two inches because it would not fully close by itself. The tenants — who did not want their names published for fear of angering the landlord — said the door had been like this since they’d moved in six months ago and that to shut it fully, they have to force it closed.

A message left seeking comment from the building’s management, Vanderbilt Properties, was not returned Friday.

“What that means to me is this is Russian roulette,” said Andrew Sokolof-Diaz, 32, a tenant who was displaced nearly a year ago from his Queens apartment after the devastating fire at 89-07 34th Ave. in Jackson Heights.

The April fire there erupted in a sixth-floor apartment, but the smoke quickly swirled throughout the building because the unit’s door was left open. All told, 200 families were displaced. The building remains vacant and nearly a year later, tenants have yet to gain access to retrieve their belongings.

Last week, 58 buildings in the Queens zip code where that fire occurred among them had 100 open violations related to self-closing doors, THE CITY found.

Just across the street from the now-decrepit fire site, a 108-unit rental building at 89-04 34th Ave. had four outstanding self-closing door violations as of last week — including one where HPD declared the landlord’s certification that the door had been fixed was invalid.

Last week THE CITY found tenants had wedged open numerous hallway self-closing doors. The stairwells had no doors, so if there was a fire, smoke would have an immediate unimpeded path throughout the building. One of the tenants explained that residents prefer not to have to open the door because it’s “too much of a hassle.”

An employee of Michael Young Realty, the building’s management, told THE CITY the owners were in the process of addressing the open violations and admitted tenants wedging doors open was a problem.

“Our super goes up and down, but there are just hard-headed tenants,” she said. “It’s not right to do that as you explain with the fire, but we can’t be on guard with them 24 and 7.”

Multiple Violations

Just down the block from the fire site, a 111-unit residence at 90-10 34th Ave. had 12 open citations as of last week, HPD data show. Most of the doors cited by HPD were functioning when THE CITY visited Thursday — with the exception of a door on the ground floor leading to the stairwell which hung open and did not self-close.

Stairwells function as chimneys during fires, potentially routing smoke throughout the building.

A message left for Stellar Properties, the building’s manager, was not returned Friday.

The tenants forced to vacate due to the fire at 89-07 34th Ave. have sued the owners for negligence and the city HPD for failing to enforce the self-closing door laws. In July, HPD sued the landlord to address the many pending violations, make the building habitable again and pay penalties.

In court filings, the owners’ attorney, Denice Bolanos, denies all negligence claims by arguing that pending violations are related only to the fire. She wrote that only 10 violations existed pre-conflagration and that half of those occurred under prior ownership.

Still tenant Sokolof-Diaz predicts a repeat in another building with another fire and another opened door — until enforcement is taken seriously.

THE CITY found multiple examples of buildings with more than a dozen open self-closing door violations going back months and even years, including:

1193 Rogers Ave., Flatbush, Brooklyn. This three-story 10-unit rental building has 21 open violations dating as far back as March 2019. The most recent citations were issued just after Christmas. The building’s manager, Jason Realty Associates, could not be reached for comment.

530-540 E. 169 St. Morrisania, the Bronx. This 321-unit apartment building is known as Fulton Tower and advertises itself as “fireproof.” It has 20 open violations dating as far back as January 2019. All but three are “immediate hazards,” and citations were issued for entry doors of 17 separate units throughout the building.