After Deadly Harlem Fire, Tenants Plan Rent Strike Over Bad Conditions

HARLEM, NY — More than six months after a devastating fire claimed the lives of three of their neighbors, tenants of a Harlem apartment building are plotting a rent strike over their landlord's continued failure to carry out basic repairs.

"Ever since then, I'm living like nightmare" said Papa Kante, whose wife, Adianatou-Nene Kourouma, and three-year-old daughter, Aissata, were both killed in the Nov. 19 fire at 1833 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd., a five-story building near West 112th Street.

Since then, Kante has lived in a shelter with his infant son, as the building's landlords have offered him little help — but continued demanding rent payments for his destroyed apartment, he said.

"I want management to help me relocating. I want management to see me as a human. I want this management to recognize my loss," Kante said at a news conference Monday outside the building, flanked by about a dozen neighbors, as well as advocates and elected officials.

Besides Kante's family, the fire also killed 81-year-old Charles Brown, a Vietnam War veteran and retired music professor. The blaze began in a third-floor apartment, then spread upstairs when residents of that unit left their door open as they escaped — a cause that mirrors January's Twin Parks fire in the Bronx that left 17 people dead.

The building's condition, already dire before the fire, is now even worse: problems include a leaky roof, mold, mouse and roach infestations, fire-damaged common areas and soot-stained walls, and a continued lack of self-closing doors and other safety measures that could have mitigated the November fire.

Residents have made repeated pleas for repairs to their landlord, Manhattanville Holdings LLC, and their management company, J Wasser, and have been met with assurances that work will begin soon. But little has been done, they say.

"We have had to put up with excuse after excuse from our landlord," said Sheena Morrison, a co-president of the building's tenant association. "We are still waiting for the most basic of repairs."

On Friday, 16 of the building's tenants filed suit against Manhattanville Holdings, demanding that they be forced to address more than 100 violations that the building has accrued with the city's Housing Preservation and Development Department. (That same city agency also sued landlords over the building's conditions last month, according to court records.)

If their demands are not met, tenants plan to stop paying rent.

Among those gathered outside the building on Monday was Oaklin Davis, who had moved to the building from his native Oklahoma just months before the fire. Though he made it out alive by using a fire escape, his belongings and apartment were destroyed.

"I was 24 years old and just starting my life in this city," he said. "Despite our efforts to work together with management, they still refuse to give us information about the progress of restoring our building so that we can return to our homes."

Representatives from J Wasser did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. The entity behind Manhattanville Holdings remains unclear.

Others present Monday included State Sen. Cordell Cleare and a representative for Councilmember Kristin Richardson Jordan, who said her office's inquiries into the building's repairs were met with "absolute confusion" by management.

Kante, who said he has struggled to eat and speak since losing his wife and daughter, said he has been left "wondering if all this is real."

"We’re all human beings," he said.

Related coverage: 2 Dead In Harlem Apartment Fire; 10 Injured, Including Children