In a tragic twist of irony, a beloved barber afraid to die in a fire was killed in the raging inferno that ravaged his Bronx apartment building over the weekend.
The badly burned body of Juan Marte, 46, was discovered in a stairway of the five-story building at 131 E. 169th St. in Mt. Eden, where a suspicious blaze broke out at 10 p.m. yesterday.
Witnesses reported seeing several teenagers lighting pieces of paper on fire in the lobby, sources said.
“[Marte] had said he never wanted to die in a fire,” said Ernesto Batista, 28, a barber at the High Class Barbershop on Grand Concourse near East 170th Street, where Marte had worked the past four years.
“We were talking about it after watching a story on the news [a couple months ago]. He didn’t want to be burned.”
Seven people were injured in the two-alarm fire and taken to Lincoln Hospital.
The flames forced at least two children to jump from windows to safety.
Marte, however, was not so fortunate.
“I don’t understand how he couldn’t get out,” said fourth-floor tenant Dinorah Gonzalez, 46, who lived on the same floor as Marte. “I think he was trying to help people get out of the building.”
At the barbershop, colleagues remembered Marte as a devoted husband and father.
“He would never go out after work, he wanted to be with his family,” said Batista. “We’re all just kind of shocked.”
Marte, who has a two-year-old grandson, with his wife and two daughters. He also has a third daughter in her 20s living in his native Dominican Republic.
Marte was known as “Juan El Gallero” — Juan the Cockfighter — because he raised chickens for cage matches back in the DR, Batista said.
As a barber, “he used scissors, which a lot of barbers don’t do anymore,” said Batista. “Back home, he would practice on the feathers of chickens.”
Coworker Edwin Pena recalled the tight bond he, Batista and Marte shared.
“I feel very sad. He treated us like his brothers,” said Pena, 26.
“We work all day here together, so you become like family. We spend more time with each other than our actual families.”
The fire remains under investigation by fire marshals.
Thirty-five apartments were affected by the blaze and the American Red Cross temporarily housed displaced residents at nearby PS 64. Those in need will be relocated to area hotels, said an agency spokesman.