An explosive fire erupted at Tracey Towers on Feb. 26, leaving charred apartments and extensive damage to several floors of the complex. The three-alarm fire was the second blaze in less than a month at the troubled development.

The fire broke out on Sunday at 4 p.m. in apartment 24D located in the north tower. It was tamed in about an hour, but took 33 units and 138 firefighters to control because of severe winds that blew the blaze back inside. Gusts spread the fire up the building’s facade, knocking out windows all the way up to the 30th floor.

 

“The wind conditions were terrible,” said Mike Parrella, a Fire Department spokesperson. “The more water you put on it, the more it just [went] back in.”

Nine firefighters were injured, with two treated at Jacobi Hospital and one sent to Cornell Medical Center for second- and third-degree burns to his neck and ears. That firefighter was still recovering as of late last week. None of the injuries were life threatening.

Several tenants were taken away from the scene in stretchers, and one resident was treated for minor injuries. They were released that day.

Firefighters determined that a space heater located in the unit’s bedroom was at fault, according to Parrella. Tenants have often complained about insufficient heat at Tracey, but Don Miller, an R-Y spokesperson, said that new boilers installed this year have corrected the situation.

Fred Flemister, who lives next to 24D, said he saw light smoke in the hallway that afternoon, whereupon his neighbor ran out of her apartment with a phone. Some five minutes later, firefighters banged on his door. “It was insane chaos,” said Flemister, 57.

Patricia Quintyne, the other adjacent neighbor, saw thick smoke billowing out on her terrace. Then her window exploded. “I ran back to just get a coat and a bag, and the whole window was blazing,” said Quintyne, 60.

Upstairs, the woman living in 25D panicked as the fire spread to her apartment. “She almost collapsed,” said Rismond Agyemang, a neighbor.

The resulting destruction to Tracey is devastating. A day after the fire, a wing of the 24th floor was completely caked in black soot, with large puddles of muddy water and dirt scattered throughout the hall. Other than charred toilets and sinks, it’s hard to discern that 24D and 25D were ever apartments. A panoramic view of downtown Manhattan unfolded where the exterior walls and windows once stood; sofa and bedsprings were the sole vestiges of furniture. In 25D, the only personal remnants were burned videotapes and a bag of children’s shoes.

R-Y Management, which oversees Tracey, estimated that between 30 and 50 apartments in the 861-unit complex suffered damages. The Quintyne’s is one of them.

“I don’t know how this is going to get fixed,” said Alston Quintyne, looking through the massive hole in his living room wall. As Quintyne and his wife stood in a disarray of furniture, cold gusts blew through their shattered window.

After seven hours of vacuuming up the water in his apartment, Flemister’s things are still soaked. “Black water was running in by the gallon,” he said.

The Red Cross visited several affected tenants. Kojo Awusu, a neighbor to the Ghanaian family living in 24D (their name was not available at press time), thought they were staying in a shelter. The Quintynes have taken up with a friend at Tracey.

Maintenance concerns
With the blaze behind them, residents are fuming at what they see as management’s slow response to the fire’s aftermath. “You have every right to be angry,” said Gladys Franco, Tracey’s site manager, as a tenant yelled at her on the afternoon after the fire.

Earlier that day, a lone maintenance worker was sweeping up ashes in the stairwell. Some tenants had taken to mopping the hallways themselves.

Miller, the R-Y spokesperson, said that cleanup efforts began later that day. But residents are livid about the delay. As of late last week, some tenants still hadn’t gotten their windows boarded up. “They should have put up plywood already,” Flemister said.

Many residents contend that Tracey’s maintenance has deteriorated over the years. Flemister remembers some 12 years ago, when another fire broke out near his apartment, that management responded immediately. “They had an entire crew that got it cleaned up,” said the 30-year resident.

Tracey suffered from another fire on Jan. 28, which destroyed a unit’s kitchen and displaced its occupants. Residents suspect that that blaze was triggered by a faulty refrigerator, which had been repaired by building staff several times. Miller didn’t have more information about it.

Tenants are calling for an investigation into the cause of last week’s fire, and many are afraid that the next one could be coming soon. “It makes me worry,” Awusu said.

R-Y checks apartment smoke detectors and distributes fire prevention information annually, according to Miller. The building has fire hydrant hookups on each floor.

But fire safety can be severely compromised if tenants can’t get out of the building easily. After the incident, the three elevators going to the top floors were out of order. Residents often have to climb the stairs from the 21st landing onward (Tower A has 41 floors.)

R-Y started replacing Tracey’s 12 notoriously troubled elevators last year. But despite the work, many of the new elevators are out of order for days at a time.

Miller said R-Y is aware of the elevator issues. “It’s a pretty extensive project,” he said. “We want to correct that problem shortly.”

But that’s of little comfort to Betty Woodard, a tenant who lives on the top floor and suffers from a heart condition. “It’s absolutely disastrous,” she said. “If I ever have a medical emergency, how would someone get up to me?”