Faulty Wiring Caused Fires at 3 Buildings Owned by Notorious Landlord

The five-alarm fire at a Bronx apartment building earlier this month that forced the evacuation of hundreds of residents and left the roof nearly completely collapsed was caused by problems with the electrical wiring, fire officials said this week — which also caused recent fires at two other buildings owned by the same landlord.

The three buildings are owned by Ved Parkash, who was named the worst landlord in New York City in 2015 by Letitia James, who was then the city’s public advocate and is now the state attorney general. Mr. Parkash is the target of continuing litigation over the condition of his buildings.

The six-story Bronx building where this month’s fire occurred, at 2910 Wallace Avenue, had been the subject of more than 400 complaints over the past two years, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which monitors the conditions of residential buildings in the city. Many of the complaints focused on a lack of heat or hot water and the presence of pests, including rats.

Mr. Parkash’s company, Parkash Management, said through a spokesman that its portfolio was full of prewar buildings in the most underserved neighborhoods of the Bronx, “aging properties in which breakdowns are frequent and require attention, repairs and upgrades on a constant basis.”

The company said that one of the other buildings it owns where a fire occurred had since been restored and was fully occupied, and that it was in the process of rehabilitating the other building. It added that the “dubious status of a decade ago, unfortunately, will always be raised by those who would rather call us the problem, instead of working with us as the solution to the housing shortage in the Bronx.”

The revelations about the landlord’s history, previously reported by The Bronx Times and The City, revived scrutiny of New York’s aging housing stock and the city’s ability to make sure people are not living in substandard conditions.

The Legal Aid Society said in a statement after the January fire that it had “long condemned” Mr. Parkash for the state of his buildings. It noted that the fire was the third one to break out in a Bronx building owned by Mr. Parkash in less than two years.

The other two fires — one at 735-745 East 242nd Street, which left two people dead, and another at 1420 Noble Avenue — were also caused by faulty electrical wiring, according to the Fire Department.

There were no deaths or serious injuries in the fire on Wallace Avenue, which happened on Jan. 10. Robert S. Tucker, the fire commissioner, said during a news conference that given the fire’s severity, it was a miracle that nobody had been seriously hurt or killed.

But two weeks after the fire, the building’s hundreds of residents are still displaced, and some are struggling to navigate city systems to find long-term housing.

The American Red Cross said through a spokesman that it was supporting 240 adults and 74 children, providing them with temporary lodging and working with its partners to help them find permanent places to live. It has also offered mental health support and assistance replacing medications that were lost in the fire.

Luz Gonzalez, who lived on the building’s third floor for a decade, said the Red Cross had helped her secure a room at a Marriot hotel in the Bronx, where she is currently staying.

But she said that when she got in touch with the city for long-term help, she was treated poorly, and that officials told her about the affordable-housing lottery system without offering much detail.

She said she was afraid to enter the shelter system and of what might happen next.

“I’m tired of crying because it’s been really hard on me,” said Ms. Gonzalez, who has chronic neuropathy, diabetes and lung disease and cannot climb stairs. “It’s not easy when you don’t have money — it’s hard.”

Advocacy groups have been working for years to support tenants of Mr. Parkash’s buildings. Several of them helped organize what was known as the Parkash Coalition around 2015, which led protests to demand better conditions for residents of the buildings. The coalition, made up of 15 tenant associations across the Bronx, sought to draw attention to pest infestations, elevator and heat issues, lost rent records and other problems.

The group was able to get Mr. Parkash, who had long been difficult to reach directly, to show up to a meeting, and he committed to satisfying several of the tenants’ demands.

The coalition disbanded after years of advocacy that organizers say led Mr. Parkash to eventually exit the Top 10 list of worst landlords in the city.

“In the last few years, we’ve considered going back to targeting Parkash,” said Edward Garcia, the co-director of organizing for the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, which spearheaded the effort. But he said that the group was also focused on ensuring that similar landlords, who he said had “persistently jeopardized their buildings and their tenants,” would “not be able to continue to operate in New York City.”

When fires are caused by electrical wiring, it could be a sign that the building’s electrical system hasn’t been replaced in a while or that the system was overwhelmed. But Robert Rappaport, a consultant who specializes in fire investigations, said it was too soon to say whether the series of three fires raised red flags.

“Two or three could be a coincidence,” Mr. Rappaport said, adding that investigators often look for patterns when determining the origin and cause of a fire.

The January fire started near the roof of the building and spread, according to inspectors with the Department of Buildings. Around 90 percent of the roof collapsed, as did walls in certain areas of the fifth and sixth floors. There was no fire damage on the lower floors of the building, but the department ordered that the building be fully vacated.

Ms. Gonzalez, the resident, said the fire alarm never went off, and that she did not realize a fire had broken out until her apartment filled with thick smoke.

She said she believed the building’s management was responsible for the scale of the destruction, adding that numerous requests to repair deteriorating infrastructure had been ignored.

She said that parts of her ceiling fell down twice in December and that she hadn’t had heat for two winters.

“I felt like I was sleeping in the street,” Ms. Gonzalez said about the lack of heat. “The landlord wouldn’t hire an electrician.”

Eryn Davis contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.