The building where two men died last night in a devastating fire was an illegally converted SRO, according to officials.
Residents and neighbors said that as many as 10 people were living in the three-story building — legally a duplex — at 16 Covert St. in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Records show that the city responded to several complaints in October and November of 2010, but officials were denied access.
“The walls weren’t fixed; there was no fire escape,” said Barbara Hunter, 55, a neighbor. “I’ve been in there and it was nasty. There was no facility to wash. There was nowhere to cook.”
Officials said the fire began in a second-floor unit in the back, when an occupant’s hot plate caught fire. The occupant attempted to smother the flames with bedding and curtains, then fled, leaving the door open. The fire moved swiftly, trapping two residents above.
Frank Edwards, was found dead on the third floor. The other, Gregory Atkinson, died jumping head-first out of the third floor window.
“I tried to go upstairs to save my brother, but the fire was too heavy,” Levi Atkinson, 54, told the Post. “I had to go outside and see him jump and die.”
As far as he knew, the building had no fire alarms, Atkinson said.
Former resident Lenora Brooks, 26, told the Post that the building’s caretaker, Willie “Cliff” Bell, 60, ran the building like a flophouse for vagrants. Bell is the late Gregory Atkinson’s former brother-in-law.
“I used to have the whole building to myself,” Bell told the Post. He began renting out rooms two or three years ago, he said, to people who needed help.
“It was my idea to start having people come in,” he said. “People who couldn’t afford rent didn’t pay. It’s all safe and good in there, trust me.”
Bell, who said he’s a deacon at Hudson Temple Church of God, lived on the first floor with an unidentified woman, according to neighbors and residents. Brooks said Bell blocked the staircase between the first and second floors with a slab of wood to protect his privacy.
“It was out of control and unstable — there were too many people in there,” Brooks said. “The bathrooms were disgusting. You couldn’t flush the toilet. [Cliff] had his own bathroom and kitchen, and everyone else had one bathroom between them. And no kitchen.”
Records show that the building is owned by Betty Rogers of North Carolina. Bell told the Post that he’s lived in the building for 15 years as the caretaker, and that Rogers, who’s in her 70s, “didn’t know there were people living there.”
Bell also said that he didn’t think the building had any smoke detectors. When asked if anyone had ever put up walls or changed the structure of the interior, he said, “Not to my knowledge.”
“Mostly older men lived there,” said Joyce Johnson, who lived next door. “They all drank a lot and would smoke reefer.” Johnson said that the Fire Department did a sweep last year and discovered that only the building’s bottom floor had electricity.
Residents on the top floors, she said, “were running wires up the staircase.” Johnson feared a possible fire ever since, she said.
The fire rages at this Covert Street building, which had been illegally converted to a single-room-occupancy hote. Two men died. (gabriella bass)