Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 26, 1990 TAG: 9003262072
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
The fire, the nation's worst in 13 years, tore through the Happy Land club, which authorities said lacked proper exits and other safeguards.
The 3:40 a.m. fire killed 61 men and 26 women, most of them Honduran and Dominican immigrants. Most were found on the second floor.
"People literally were stacked on top of each other," said Anthony De Vita, the Fire Department's command chief. "It was a firetrap," he said of the two-story building in an impoverished neighborhood near the Bronx Zoo.
Some of the victims broke a hole through a wall to an adjoining hall in a desperate attempt to save their lives, said Red Cross worker Margaret Glugover.
Julio Gonzalez, 36, was charged with arson and murder in the case, said Lt. Raymond O'Donnell, a police spokesman. The district attorney's office will determine how many counts Gonzalez will face.
"We believe the motive in this case was the result of a dispute he had with a female employee of the club," Police Commissioner Lee Brown said at a City Hall news conference Sunday evening.
Gonzalez emigrated in 1980 from Cuba during the Mariel boatlift that brought 125,000 Cubans to the United States.
Police said Gonzalez went into the club about 3 a.m. and began arguing with his former girlfriend, who sold tickets near the entrance.
A club bouncer evicted the man half an hour later, and police alleged he returned and started the fire near the entrance.
The woman employee left before the fire, Brown said.
At least two women and one man, believed to be the club's disc jockey, escaped. The man was seriously burned; the condition of the women was unknown.
Most of the dead were believed to have suffocated from the thick smoke, which billowed hundreds of feet, but some were trampled, said Lynn Schulman, an Emergency Medical Service spokeswoman.
"This is the worst thing I have seen in my career," said Emergency Medical Services specialist Christopher McCarthy. "It hurt my stomach. It was sickening."
"Most of the bodies were in dance clothes," McCarthy said. "They were out to have fun. . . . I saw wall-to-wall bodies - an indication of mass confusion and panic."
The fire was the deadliest in the continental United States since a May 28, 1977, blaze at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Ky., that killed 164 people. A Dec. 31, 1986, fire at a hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth, killed 96 people.
The tragedy occurred in East Tremont, a section of the Bronx borough. Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch described it as an "economically disadvantaged, working-class, Latino neighborhood."
The building housed a group that organized children's baseball as well as adult social events, said Lillian Rivera, a neighbor.
A makeshift morgue was set up at a hall next door. Authorities took Polaroid pictures of the bodies and showed them to 200 friends and relatives at a school across the street where the cries and wails of relatives could be heard outside. Then, the bodies were moved to a hospital morgue.
After viewing the bodies, Mayor David Dinkins called the scene "graphic and sad."
Dinkins said a vacate order was issued in November 1988 because the club lacked a proper sprinkler system, exits, emergency lighting and signs.
City records show the club was again ordered closed on Nov. 1, 1989, by the Buildings Department, Dinkins said.
The club had no liquor or cabaret license.
Two neighborhood residents said three gunshots were heard just before the fire. Robert Ungar, deputy fire commissioner, said he could not confirm another report that cans of accelerant were found.
So-called "social clubs" proliferate in New York City's poor neighborhoods, and despite their name many of them admit virtually anyone who wants to enter, functioning essentially as unlicensed taverns or dance clubs.
New York police officials have estimated that alcohol is sold without a license at more than 200 locations.
Authorities said the victims tried to escape the windowless club down a stairway just wide enough for one person. A second stairway apparently wasn't used, perhaps because it couldn't be reached from the club.
Sixty-nine of the victims died upstairs, where the dance floor was located.
The tragedy occurred on the 79th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire in Manhattan, which killed 145 people, most of them immigrant garment workers, and led to reforms governing work place safety.
EMS Lt. Roy David said he got to the scene just as the male survivor was staggering out.
"He walked toward me. He couldn't talk. He couldn't say anything. All we could do was treat him," David said.
Five firefighters, including a battalion chief who broke his leg, were taken to Jacobi after inhaling smoke. Six other firefighters were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.
by CNB