Hundreds of Muslim worshipers packed the Islamic Cultural Center, located on Clay Avenue in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, on Sunday, Jan. 16, and thousands more stood shoulder to shoulder, wearing traditional Muslim clothing and face masks, to pay their respects to 15 of the 17 victims killed in the horrific Twin Parks North West fire tragedy on Jan. 9, as reported. As mourners jammed into several blocks along East 166th Street, the funeral and prayer service was attended by many high-ranking, City and State elected officials, including Mayor Eric Adams.

 

As briefly reported, despite the frigid temperatures that hovered around 20 degrees, a large crowd of New Yorkers from all backgrounds turned out for the service, most remaining silent as they watched the service from several large television screens set up under various large tents, lining East 166th Street.

 

Highbridge resident, Ebrahaim Endure, showed up to the service carrying a sign dangling from a rope which was fastened around the neck of his winter coat. The sign wording disputed official reports that a space heater and defective self-closing doors caused the tragedy. Endure blamed building mismanagement and lack of timely repairs to the building for the blaze.

 

Recalling past visits he had paid to several residents of the building, Endure fumed, “The building was dysfunctional!” He continued, “No heat! No hot water! The elevators aren’t running, and the building is filthy!” He concluded, “The presidents of NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) come and go and they did nothing. You could stand there for over a half hour to get an elevator to go up.”

 

In the aftermath of the fire, Norwood News reviewed the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) complaint records for the building in question and found there were nine complaints recorded, with two still active as of Jan. 10. Of the two active complaints, one related to a “24 Hr Follow-Up Compliance Inspection for Vac X 04/2022,” and one related to an elevator audit. When contacted, DOB said of the first complaint that after the fire, DOB issued a Partial Vacate Order for the entire 3rd floor (14 apartments in total).

 

“It is standard protocol at DOB that following the issuance of a Vacate Order, our inspectors will return to the location within 24 hours to confirm that the Vacate Order is being complied with. This follow-up inspection is noted in BIS for record-keeping purposes,” a DOB official said. “In this case, our investigators have been on scene all day, and we can confirm that the order was being complied with.”

 

…and here we go. https://t.co/v1uUJeSqZ7

— NYC EMS Watch (@NYCEMSwatch) January 16, 2022

 

Regarding the elevator complaint, the DOB official told Norwood News, “DOB performed an inspection of the two elevators inside of the building following the fire. We found that they were not damaged by the fire, and at the time of inspection, they were in safe operable condition.” [Elevators should not be used in the event of a fire.]

 

Meanwhile, back at the funeral, a second mourner, Isatou Jallow, a fire safety director at another building, said, “A lot of NYCHA buildings are not working. People call me and complain to me that they put the oven on, or when there’s no heat, they put a heater on because if there was enough heat, the people would not have to put on a [space] heater.”

 

Moments after a scuffle broke out in front of the Islamic Cultural Center, Norwood resident, Alina Dowe, said of the mourners, “They’re starting to cause chaos because a lot of elected officials are being allowed to go in. However, some of the families that come to the mosque on a continuous basis that are sincerely here to pray and mourn with the families, they’re not able to get in.”

 

Dowe, whose mother-in-law teaches at the school down the block from the Twin Parks North West building, offered, “We do need to have better (building) code enforcement. However, we also need to make sure that people stop breaking the doors. They have to stop breaking the fire alarms. They have to stop breaking the lights in the staircase.” She added, “A lot of small landlords are also dealing with the same thing, where they make sure smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors are in, but the people that are smoking weed, they turn them off, so they’re no longer working.”

 

Standing along East 166th Street with the mourners, Assemblyman José Rivera (A.D. 78) told Norwood News, “My goodness, one tragedy after another. We barely remember that we had a terrible tragedy back in 1990 called the Happy Land tragedy, [and] here we are today. We lost 87 people that day in that tragedy. Here we are….we lost so many children and my question is we have a law that heat in apartments should never go below 68 [degrees], so what’s going on? If we have to increase it to 78, let’s do so, so people don’t have to buy heaters. Electric heaters are dangerous.”

 

In the aftermath of the fire, the City took steps to introduce legislation to improve housing fire safety. At a press conference on Jan. 18, District 15 Councilman Oswald Feliz and Congress Member Ritchie Torres (NY-15), in whose respective districts the fire occurred, along with Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson outlined the new regulations. They include requiring inspections of fire safety violations by landlords, mandating re-inspections of violations that are placed, decreasing the amount of time landlords have to correct violations, and increasing fines for failure to correct such violations, as well as raising minimum heat requirements from 62 degrees to 68 degrees, so that residents will not feel the need to use space heaters.

 

 

Video by David Greene

 

Meanwhile, Rivera added of the tragedy, “My heart goes out to all the families… In today’s New York Post, a lady, one of the victims who survived (the Twin Parks fire) …. she lost two brothers in Happy Land. Now, isn’t that a tragedy?”

 

Outside the Islamic Cultural Center, Feliz said, “It’s going to be a long process, specifically the issue related to housing. Many of the apartments have been repaired, but many of the families do not want to return, due to the fact that they don’t want to relive the tragedy. So, we’re working with all of the families to get them apartments elsewhere.” The councilman added that many residents had CVR Section 8 vouchers to allow them to live in “specific buildings” but the City was working with the federal government to get survivors alternative vouchers to allow them to live in any housing complex.

 

Volunteers from ICNA Relief, Community Change, Inc., and Muslims Giving Back were on hand at the funeral service, dispensing Danish pastries and hot chocolate, as well as facemasks and hand sanitizer. One group even handed out winter caps, scarfs, and gloves to keep folks warm. At least one man, according to family members, was being treated by EMS for hypothermia.

 

 

 

 

As the memorial service came to an end, one by one the bodies of the 15 victims were brought out and placed on gurneys and rolled to one of the 15 hearses from Paak Funeral Home that had lined up along the entire block of Clay Avenue. From inside the mosque, a woman was heard screaming, “We need an ambulance, someone’s having a heart attack!” A man outside then yelled, “We need medical!” Half a dozen police officers from the NYPD’s Community Affairs division entered the building as a child’s casket was being brought out onto the street. The officers returned minutes later carrying a woman, one of two women who had fainted.

 

Norwood News later followed up with the emergency services on the reported incidents on the day and they confirmed receiving reports at 11.49 a.m. at 371 East 166th Street in Morrisania, of a medical incident and that two civilian patients were transported to Bronx Lebanon. As to the nature of the incident, they said EMS/FDNY did not have or provide protected patient health information as per federal law, HIPAA.

 

On Monday, Jan. 17, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Sheikh Musa Drammeh who oversaw the prayer service and was a coordinator for the fire victims, reiterated  a comment he had made at the funeral service, directed at the local elected officials in attendance. Drammeh said, “I said we are holding the funeral service here for these 15 Bronxites, because they lived in the Bronx. Had they lived in Midtown Manhattan, like in ZIP codes 10012, they would have not died. They died because they lived in the Bronx… If nothing is done, we’re going to continue to have funeral services for people who live in the Bronx.”

 

.@NYCMayor Adams and other New York City leaders attend funeral services at the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx for victims of last weekend’s fire. pic.twitter.com/umjIccFhD7

— NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) January 16, 2022

 

According to Drammeh, a funeral service had previously been held in Harlem for the two additional fire victims. Of the 15, whose services were held at the Islamic Cultural Center, 11 were buried in New Jersey and four were flown back to Gambia. Drammeh said that, initially, all the victims were believed to have been from Gambia, but later, it was found that 14 victims were from Gambia, two were from Mali and one from Guinea, all countries located in West Africa.

 

Referring to the crowd size at the funeral, Drammeh remarked, “I’m not surprised by the turnout, but we are extremely grateful for what New Yorkers have done. As a matter of fact, two of the most affected families, they told me they wanted to express how grateful they are for all the services from our City agencies and organizations who donated.”

 

Drammeh continued, “And the Jewish community from the Tri-State area took the tragedy as their own. They raised so much money. They provided every service, and they continue to say, “Whatever is needed, let us know.” He added that the UJA Federation had donated $25,000 to the victims and survivors.

 

 

Video by David Greene via YouTube

 

Of the two victims who had been removed from the building during the funeral service, Drammeh said, “That happened right after the service as people were overwhelmed with emotion; what [help] they needed was immediately provided.”

 

The Bronx has indeed experienced some of the deadliest fires in New York City, such as the referenced Happy Land fire at the Southern Boulevard nightclub in West Farms on March 25, 1990, when an arsonist chained an exit and poured accelerant in the venue, killing 87 people.

 

The deadly fire along Woodycrest Avenue on March 7, 2007, killed ten people, including nine children from two families. A delayed installation of a sprinkler system, as well as missing smoke detectors and an overheated cord in a space heater were labeled the causes of the fire.

More recently, on Dec. 29, 2017, 13 people died in an apartment fire on Prospect Avenue in Belmont. Fire investigators determined that a child playing with the burners of an oven caused the blaze. The child’s mother grabbed the child and fled the apartment, reportedly leaving the apartment door open which allowed the fire to spread throughout the building.

 

The names of the 17 Twin Park North West fire victims are: Fatoumata Drammeh, 50, Foutmala Drammeh, 21, Muhammed Drammeh, 12, Nyumaaisha Drammeh, 19, Fatoumata Dukureh, 5, Haji Dukary, 49, Haja Dukureh, 37, Mariam Dukureh, 11, Mustapha Dukureh, 12, Isatou Jabbie, 31, Omar Jambang, 6, Sera Janneh, 27, Hagi Jawara, 47, Ousmane Konteh, 2, Haouwa Mahamadou, 5, Seydou Toure, 12 and Fatoumata Tunkara, 43.

 

 

Drammeh concluded, “But out of the worst tragedy in 30 years comes the best manifestation of who New Yorkers are. You know, sometimes we focus so much on race, about religion, about ethnicity, about politics; all these types of divisive nonsense, but last week really highlighted what needed to be highlighted, which is we are one New York family, and I could not be more proud.”

 

Meanwhile, relief efforts for the victims are ongoing by the Gambian Youth Organization, at Monroe College by various elected officials, and by other community organizations. For details on how to help, please click here.

 

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.