180 Central Avenue: What Was Lost

Brooklyn, NY - upfromflames - Thursday, June 14th, 2007 : goo

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The following text is transcribed from an interview with Sonia Molina (carried out April 15th, 2007). Sonia’s two sisters and mother died in an arson fire at 180 Central Ave, Brooklyn, on the morning of June 14, 1974. The family pictures (and doll) were salvaged from the burnt apartment by her grandmother.

She later grew up (with my co-worker’s family) to be a Bushwick educator. Her story is a sad reminder of what was lost in the 1970's firestorm.

When it happened, I was nine, my older sister 10, and my younger sister 4 years old...That day we were packing up to move to new house, [since the city was condemning our building]

...I had slept at my grandmother’s that night...I remember, it was about 4 or 5 in the morning, when we heard a pounding at the door. My grandmother, she got up and went to open the door, all I heard was her screaming.

She came into the room, said ‘Hurry up get dressed’! It was my aunt, and she told us that there had been a fire….we ran from my Grandma’s house on Melrose to my mother’s house on Central [at Hart].

...In front of the apartment building there were ambulances, fire trucks. It was just chaos. Everybody was outside. I remember looking at the building and everything was just burnt. I remember seeing my neighbor from across the hall. She and her family were there, and they were whispering. But I didn’t hear. I knew that something that happened, but no one was telling me anything. I guess I blocked it from my memory...

Everyone was whispering around me, but I really don’t remember when I was told that my mom and both my sisters had passed away in the fire.

My sister, they found her under the bed...

…my mom was the one that really burned...

But my younger sister wasn’t burnt at all, only because my mom was holding her, and covering her up...

My dad didn’t pass away...What happened was...the fire escape was gated and locked, so they could not get out that way. So, after he put my younger sister in my mom’s arms, he jumped out the front bedroom window to get help. We lived on the third floor....My father, he broke almost every bone in his body. After that, he always suffered from poor circulation, and years later he died of a massive heart attack...My grandma never forgave him for surviving.

The next day it was on the front page of the New York Post and every so often my grandmother would take out the newspaper and just cry. This went on for quite a few years until someone—we never figured out who—took the newspaper and threw it away without her knowing.

What was very ironic was that the fire station was just around the corner from the building. The fire men said that prior to the fire, there been a false alarm at the same address. So when they called in the real fire, they didn’t believe the people. I don’t know, cause I’m sure you could’ve smelled that, since the two buildings almost touched.

We later found out that this was a fire that was started on purpose. [The fire marshals] had found a gasoline can in the basement, and they said that someone had poured gasoline from the 3rd floor all the way down to the 1st. And other things were suspicious...The landlady’s sister lived next door to us, but she was downstairs with her kids, and they were all dressed...No one ever knocked on our door, we were never told that anything was going on.

The fire dept. was never able to prove anything. But they suspected maybe it was the landlady, because the city was condemning the building. She wasn’t giving heat, or keeping up with repairs. That’s why the city took the building away from her…and we were supposed to move out the next day. No one could ever prove anything.

I always think that’s where my mom and my sisters were. And for a reason, I feel that God doesn’t want anything on that place. Every lot around here has been built up, but this lot is still empty.

My mom and my sisters were here for a reason. Thank God they still live through us, as family...But I want other people, who are not family, to remember them. My mom worked in Bushwick, worked very hard. We both went to school, my older sister and I, to PS 145. Even though they are not here anymore they did leave a mark...

Especially for those who are new in theneighborhood, I would like to think that at least someone will remember them, and remember what was lost.

Many thanks to Sonia and her cousin (sister) Magally Chevere for all her kind help with this story. And again, to Randy Barron at the FDNY photo unit for getting these archive photos.

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armstrong: heartbreaking. god bless you.

no one: where on melrose were you ?

austin: great post.

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