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Lawyer Sues City For $20 Million Over Williamsburg Warehouse Fire
By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 7, 2015
Modified Feb 7, 2015
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 7, 2015
Modified Feb 7, 2015
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A Manhattan attorney has become the first person to file a lawsuit agains the City over the seven-alarm fire at a CitiStorage warehouse in Williamsburg last weekend.
Lawyer Robert Vilensky, who has represented clients in the deadly 2013 Metro-North derailment and the Harlem gas explosion, filed a notice of claim with the city Comptroller’s Office, according to the Post.
CitiStorage, at 5 North 11th Street (a piece of land once estimated to be worth $100 million), is where many city agencies—including Administration for Children’s Services & the City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation—store their paper records.
Vilensky says in the notice that the FDNY is to blame for failing to ensure that all the embers from the first fire that started in the building around 4 a.m. on Jan. 31st were extinguished before firefighters left the scene. The FDNY reportedly turned off the sprinkler system when they left, and firefighters were forced to come back around 6 a.m. when the second larger fire broke out, causing untold damage.
Tagged
Citistorage
lawsuit
robert Vilensky
williamsburg
williamsburg warehouse fire
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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