Vigil marks one-year anniversary of fatal Bronx fire: ‘An emotional day’

A solemn vigil on Monday marked the first anniversary of one of the darkest days in the city’s history — the Bronx blaze at the Twin Parks high-rise that killed 17, including eight children.

Survivors and city officials gathered at the 19-story Fordham Heights building to honor the dead and rename the street 17 Abdoulie Touray Way — for the number killed and the first West African immigrant to move into the building.

“We recognize those lives on this day one year later,” Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson said at the vigil. “January 9, 2022, a day that we will forever remember [as] a dark day in the history of our community, of our borough, of our city and of our state.”

“We have found purpose from our pain,” Gibson said. “We have found strength within the storm. We may be damaged but we are not destroyed. We may be bruised, but we are not broken. We are a strong community.”

For some, however, the tragedy remains too fresh.

“I haven’t been able to move on,” 15th-floor tenant Wanda Brown said Monday.

“The family that lived next to me passed away — those were my neighbors,” said Brown, 60. “Every day I have to pass their door to get to my door. That’s the tragic part because I always have to pass the door.

“Sometimes when I walk by, I can’t even look at it,” she added.

Stephen Yang

Stephen Yang

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Stephen Yang

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The Jan. 9, 2022, inferno was later blamed on a malfunctioning electric space heater and fire safety doors that failed to close properly.

“This was due to lack of proper affordable housing,” New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said Monday. “Until we get that right, I feel we will be here again.”

Earlier on Monday, Mayor Eric Adams, who was present at the vigil, attended closed services at the nearby Masjid-Ur-Rahmah mosque. Most of the victims were Muslim immigrants from The Gambia and elsewhere in West Africa, authorities said.

“Today is an emotional day,” Anthony Wallace, 50, who lived in the building when the fire broke out but has since moved, told The Post on Monday. “I come by the building every now and then, but this a day to share memories.”

One survivor walked up to a group of firefighters at the scene on Monday and said simply: “Thank you for saving our lives. You are our heroes.”

Fire officials determined the fire at the 333 E. 181st St. high-rise shortly before 11 a.m. started in apartment 3N, and spewed deadly smoke throughout the building.

Mamadou Wague, who lived in the apartment with his family, later told The Post that he believed he pushed the door open too far when he fled, which caused the self-closing door to jam open.

According to the official fire department report on the fatal fire, at least two stairwell doors were also left open, further spreading the smoke throughout the 120-unit building.

“As occupants evacuated the fire apartment, 3N, the door to the fire apartment was not closed, allowing smoke to travel uninhibited throughout the third-floor hallway,” the 230-page FDNY report, completed in September, determined.

“All 17 fatalities either evacuated their apartment into the public halls or attempted to evacuate, hereby opening their living space to the smoke inside the public hallway.”

The Bronx blaze was among the deadly incidents that helped to inspire an amendment to the US Fire Administration Act in December, which gives federal fire investigators more authority to investigate the cause of local fires.

The federal fire agency also announced it would mark the anniversary of the Bronx blaze.