Firefighters battled an all-hands fire at the top of an East Flatbush apartment building with a long history of safety violations on Aug. 10.
The blaze broke out in an apartment on the top floor of 70 Rockaway Parkway just after 4:30 p.m. and quickly filled the top floor and the cockloft — the space between the top floor and the roof of the building — with thick smoke. Firefighters searched the top floors of the building for trapped or injured residents, but found each room empty. No injuries were reported, according to the FDNY.
New York’s Bravest were forced to stretch hose lines across four lanes of traffic on Rockaway Parkway to reach the flames, and brought the fire under control at 6:53 p.m. The FDNY is still investigating the cause of the blaze.
Per city records, 70 Rockaway Parkway — owned by Solomon Landau and managed by Icon Management, LLL — has amassed a number of violations with the city’s departments of Buildings and Housing Preservation and Development — some considered hazardous to human health and safety. In 2019, Landau made the public advocate’s Worst Landlords Watchlist, with more than 300 open HPD violations at four different properties.
Forty-three open HPD violations show apartments in the building are infested with roaches, mice, and mold – and that building management has not acted to fix the issues. According to DOB records, the exterior of the building has been extremely damaged — with leaning walls and cracking parapets — since at least 2021.
In 2019, the building was dinged by HPD for broken smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, busted self-closing doors, and a blocked fire escape — though the department notes that those issues were eventually fixed.
