Hundreds turn out for Bronx fire victims' funeral services

Brittany Kriegstein, Emma Seiwell and Shant Shahrigian, New York Daily News
·2 min read

NEW YORK — Hundreds of mourners overflowed a Bronx mosque Sunday for funeral services for 15 of the people killed in last week’s apartment building fire — the deadliest blaze in the city in three decades.

They were paying final respects to nine adults and six children who perished after a faulty space heater caused an inferno in a Bronx high-rise last Sunday. Two of the child victims were buried last week.

Hundreds of attendees who couldn’t fit inside the the Islamic Cultural Center of the Bronx watched a livestream of the somber proceedings from a tent set up on E. 166th Street.

Speakers denounced conditions leading up to the fire.

“These funeral caskets are here because they lived in the Bronx,” said Sheikh Musa Drammneh. “We are here because we lived in the Bronx. People are dying because they lived in the Bronx.”

Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin promised a $2 million victims’ compensation fund from the state. That comes after the city announced $2,250 in emergency financial aid for every household at the Twin Parks North West building, where residents have been reluctant to return.

“What is happening here in the Bronx, it is what is happening here across our city in communities where Black, brown and immigrant people are,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “It’s time to end those inequalities so we don’t have our babies and our families torn apart.”

After a space heater started last week’s blaze, smoke spread when an apartment door that was supposed to automatically close failed to do so, according to officials.

Attorney General Letitia James, who previously promised to investigate the fire, called for justice for the victims.

“There were conditions in that building that should have been corrected. There were conditions in that building that should have been inspected,” she said. “There were funds that were rewarded to individuals that should have gone to rehabilitation and to correct those conditions.

“We’ll use the law both as a sword and a shield to protect you,” James said.

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