New York's Murray Hill Apartment Building Plagued by Years of Furnace Malfunctions, Deaths
February 17, 2004 -- Furnace malfunctions have for years plagued the Murray Hill apartment building where two men died in bed from carbon-monoxide poisoning, outraged residents said yesterday - as two tenants clung to life.
Residents even survived the exact same problem four years ago - a nonfatal forewarning of Sunday's tragedy, fire officials confirmed.
"In 1999, in January, the same thing happened in the same building, and we evacuated everyone," said 12-year firefighting vet Joe Vizzini, who also responded to Sunday's poisonings. "It was the same exact thing. And now people died," he added. "It's not like it came out of nowhere."
Meanwhile, residents of four apartments said they had tried to reach building super Richard Zafra as recently as Sunday afternoon - just hours before the FDNY rushed to evacuate them - to complain about lightheadedness or the smell of fumes from a backed-up furnace.
But Zafra did not return their pages, they said. Zafra slammed his door when The Post attempted to talk to him.
Law-enforcement sources confirmed yesterday that Sunday's fatal leak was caused by a furnace with a soot-clogged exhaust pipe.
The building's managing agent, developer Scott Solomon, told The Post only that he felt "horrible" about the tragedy. In a statement, he claimed the building's heating and ventilation systems had no previous problems and were regularly inspected.
The furnace did pass inspection in May, 2003, an FDNY spokesman confirmed. "I am both furious and heartbroken," said Bethany Henderson, 27, a lawyer who lives on the top floor of the six-story building, where the two men were discovered blue and lifeless.
"We've had boiler problems the entire time we've lived there," Henderson said of her and her husband, who only escaped death from the rising fumes because they'd made a last-minute decision to visit friends at the Jersey shore.
The dead were Harvey Needleman, 68, a retired Northwest Airlines pilot, and his partner Joaquin Polanco, 40. Needleman, a dog lover and theater aficionado who lived in the building 24 years, had narrowly survived the building's previous furnace catastrophe - it caught fire last May, said his brother, Don, 72.
Carbon monoxide is lighter than air, so it was no surprise to fire officials that the two fatalities were on the top floor. Yvette Karpa, 71, also lived on the top floor. She remains in stable condition at Jacobi Hospital.
One floor down, fumes gravely sickened the tragedy's fourth victim, Jessica Stoeckel, 29, a doctor and marathon runner. She remains in critical condition.
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