EXCLUSIVE: Harlem blaze victims return home after 2-year battle with landlord
More than a dozen tenants left homeless after 2012 fire engulfed their five-story apartment building were allowed to return Friday after lengthy dispute with Eugene Cundelan.
BY JAN RANSOM
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, January 2, 2015, 9:34 PM
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LISTORT, GARY/LISTORT,GARY-FREELANCEFirefighters put out flames from debris that fell from the 3rd floor Harlem brownstone at 67.W. 126 st.
More than a dozen Harlem tenants who have been without a home since a fire engulfed their five-story apartment building two years ago were finally allowed to start returning Friday after a nasty battle with their landlord.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. ordered landlord Eugene Cundelan to let the tenants back into 509 W. 134th St. after an order to vacate was lifted on Dec. 11.
Tenants received keys to their apartments, but none to the building’s front door; some of the residents, including 49-year-old Isidro Frias, returned to find most of his belongings were gone.
“It’s been horrible,” Frias said in Spanish, adding that he and his family have been living in a nearby apartment, sometimes going without food while struggling to pay about $500 more per month than the $786 he doled out for his rent-stabilized unit.
Cundelan did not respond to requests for comment.
JOE MARINO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWSPublic Advocate Letitia James
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development teamed with the tenants in a 2012 lawsuit compelling the landlord to make repairs needed to reopen the building, said attorney John Gorman, adding that the landlord dragged his feet.
The city agency slapped Cundelan with a $30,000 fine for noncompliance, said a source from the office of Public Advocate Tish James, which also provided assistance to tenants.
“There’s a housing crisis in New York and we must do everything in our power to get our neighbors back in their homes,” James said in a statement. “It is simply unacceptable that these tenants were unable to return home for more than two years.”
