Firefighters battled an all-hands fire at the top of an East Flatbush apartment building with a long history of safety violations on Aug. 10.
The blaze broke out in an apartment on the top floor of 70 Rockaway Parkway just after 4:30 p.m. and quickly filled the top floor and the cockloft — the space between the top floor and the roof of the building — with thick smoke. Firefighters searched the top floors of the building for trapped or injured residents, but found each room empty. No injuries were reported, according to the FDNY.
![ladder at top of east flatbush building fire](https://www.brooklynpaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/DSC_5710-700x467.jpg)
New York’s Bravest were forced to stretch hose lines across four lanes of traffic on Rockaway Parkway to reach the flames, and brought the fire under control at 6:53 p.m. The FDNY is still investigating the cause of the blaze.
Per city records, 70 Rockaway Parkway — owned by Solomon Landau and managed by Icon Management, LLL — has amassed a number of violations with the city’s departments of Buildings and Housing Preservation and Development — some considered hazardous to human health and safety. In 2019, Landau made the public advocate’s Worst Landlords Watchlist, with more than 300 open HPD violations at four different properties.
Forty-three open HPD violations show apartments in the building are infested with roaches, mice, and mold – and that building management has not acted to fix the issues. According to DOB records, the exterior of the building has been extremely damaged — with leaning walls and cracking parapets — since at least 2021.
![firefighters on scene of east flatbush fire](https://www.brooklynpaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/DSC_5688-700x514.jpg)
In 2019, the building was dinged by HPD for broken smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, busted self-closing doors, and a blocked fire escape — though the department notes that those issues were eventually fixed.