FDNY firefighters on Friday removed a second body from a Bronx apartment building destroyed in a massive fire that heartbroken family members believe is a missing 65-year-old grandmother whose husband also died in the blaze.
Tashaila Parks broke down in tears as New York’s Bravest carried the remains from the ruins of the fire-ravaged E. 209th St. apartment building in Norwood where her missing aunt, Mary Ann Martin, had lived.
Martin lived in a third-floor apartment with her 70-year-old husband, Lester — right above the apartment where an explosion sparked the five-alarm fire that gutted the building.
Lester’s body was found Wednesday as firefighters fought the blaze.
When asked if she knew the body recovered Friday was her missing aunt, Parks said, “I won’t know until we confirm tomorrow, but almost certain.”
Parks and her family have been anxiously searching for her aunt ever since the explosion tore through the building at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“(It’s been) 48 hours since the fire started and we still have no location of my aunt Mary Ann Martin,” Parks said just hours before the body was recovered Friday. “We keep getting told that they did find somebody, they didn’t find somebody. We just need to know.”
Firefighters were forced to wait before recovering any remains as they shored up the compromised structure, according to FDNY sources.
“They had been together forever, for more than 40 years,” Parks said of her aunt and uncle. “They were very much still in love.”
Parks said Mary Ann was home at the time of the explosion.
“My aunt usually doesn’t go anywhere on Wednesdays. That’s, like, kind of part of her routine,” said Parks. “So, to our knowledge, she would still have been inside.”
Lester Martin’s body was found in a collapsed section of the building and had to be temporarily stored in an alley before being transferred to the hospital in a body bag late Wednesday, family members and sources said.
He had recently retired and was enjoying time with his family following his son’s death. The couple had one surviving son and several grandchildren, his niece said.
“We just got back from a big family trip to Pennsylvania,” Parks said. “We had a wonderful time just being together.”
“But now this happened,” she added.
Surveillance footage obtained by the Daily News shows the explosion erupting on the building’s second floor, sending glass and other debris rocketing across the street.
In another clip, a man can be seen walking on the opposite side of the street, when he suddenly ducks, a flying window frame narrowly missing him as debris lands all around. A parked car visible in the frame takes the brunt of the shrapnel, which shatters its rear windshield, the video shows.
Ellesse Falcon, 35, left her 12 dogs inside her apartment and headed to a nearby grocery store Wednesday afternoon, only to return about half an hour later to find her building engulfed in flames.
“I thought, honestly, the whole building blew up and my dogs with it,” she said.
Falcon said her animals were rescued about eight hours after the blast, but not before she was arrested for trying to force her way into the building.
“No one helped me,” she said, “and I begged to the point where I was arrested and processed because I wanted to get my dogs out.”
Cops said Falcon was spotted with a group of people crossing police tape and was being escorted away from the firefighting operation when she shoved an NYPD lieutenant from behind.
She was charged with obstruction, harassment and disorderly conduct, police said.
Falcon said the judge overseeing her arraignment dropped all charges against her the following day. An NYPD spokesperson could not immediately confirm the charges were dropped.
“The judge wholeheartedly apologized to me, and she let me go,” the dog lover said.
Tenants told officials that they had smelled gas in the building before the fire.
“I smelled gas. I started checking the house to see if anything was leaking,” tenant Daniel Mercado, 49, told the Daily News. “I checked the hallway. I sat down and an hour or two later it exploded. (The) wall fell, (the) ceiling fell.”
Mercado said he found the woman who lives in the apartment where the blast occurred in the stairwell. Her poodle was dead, he said.
“We came outside with her and she was able to walk on her own but she couldn’t talk, she was in shock,” Mercado said. “The fire was all over the closet and kitchen.”
Dramatic photos taken from the scene show a firefighter on a tower ladder plucking a panicked child from a fire escape. Fourteen people were injured — two critically — in the conflagration and taken to local hospitals. Six firefighters were among the injured, officials said.
The blaze was declared under control at 3:30 p.m. but small fires reignited throughout the rest of the afternoon, FDNY officials said.
The fire was finally out by Wednesday evening.
An investigation by FDNY fire marshals into the fire’s cause remains ongoing, officials said.
