Cramped basement apartments have long been a prevalent piece of New York City’s vast housing stock, a shadowy network of illegal rentals that often lack basic safety features like more than one way to get out, and that yet are a vital source of shelter for many immigrants like Robert Bravo, who lived in a dark basement unit in Brooklyn that he tried to cheer up with personal mementos.
But after Wednesday’s record-shattering rainfall, the underground units turned into tormented scenes of life and death: Of the 13 people known to have died so far in New York City in Wednesday’s storm, at least 11 were in basement units, nearly as many dead as in Louisiana, where Hurricane Ida made landfall on Sunday.
They included Mr. Bravo, whose apartment turned into a death trap as water gushed into his unit and quickly overwhelmed him.
That people living in illegal basement apartments face danger is not new. But while the worry has traditionally focused on fires or, to a lesser degree, carbon monoxide poisoning, climate change has now made these low-lying homes increasingly treacherous for a different reason: the likelihood of deadly flooding, when a wall of water blocks what is often the only means of escape.
“If there was ever proof that we need to address this basement issue, this is it,” said Annetta Seecharran, the executive director of the Chhaya Community Development Corporation, a group that works on housing issues for low-income South Asian and Indo-Caribbean New Yorkers. “We’re going to continue to have these climate-related issues.”
The floods on Wednesday have placed fresh scrutiny on New York City’s regulation of basement apartments. Because most are illegal, there is no reliable count of how many exist, but the number is likely in the tens of thousands.
It is not clear whether all of the homes where people died during the storm on Wednesday were illegal units. But at a home in Woodside, Queens, where a 2-year-old boy and his parents were found dead, a certificate of occupancy shows that the basement had not been approved for residential use.
City records also showed two complaints of illegal basements in 2012 for another Queens home where an 86-year-old woman was found dead. The complaints were closed after city building inspectors could not gain access to the basement.
A spokesman for the Department of Buildings said on Thursday that the department was investigating the deaths, but did not have “any records of any previously issued violations at these properties related to illegal conversion issues.”
Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, Chelsia Rose Marcius and Ali Watkins contributed reporting.
"world" - Google News
September 03, 2021 at 07:09AM
https://ift.tt/3kLpVLq
N.Y.C. Storm Deaths Highlight Shadow World of Basement Apartments - The New York Times
"world" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3d80zBJ
https://ift.tt/2WkdbyX
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "N.Y.C. Storm Deaths Highlight Shadow World of Basement Apartments - The New York Times"
Post a Comment