Andrew “Dre” Smedley, holding an inhaler and with LCI’s Rick Mazzadra: “I just don’t want to be outside” and homeless again. Kyle, retrieving his guppy: “That’s all I worried about. Just the fish.” Bharadwaj: One minute he was listening to Iron Maiden and drinking green tea, the next he saw a hallway filled with fire and smoke. Mandy’s Zalmy Weiss (left) who helped book dozens of rooms at La Quinta Inn and helped coordinate tenants’ returns to the property Wednesday to retrieve their belongings. A day after a fire displaced dozens of tenants from a five-story apartment building on Chapel Street, Punyam Bharadwaj returned to pick up a suitcase full of clothes, Andrew “Dre” Smedley grabbed his inhaler and his PlayStation 5, and Kyle hiked up five flights of stairs hoping that his pet fish had survived the night. “I’m lucky I had saved up some money,” Christopher Schroeder said after retrieving a pair of boots, a pair of sneakers, two pairs of pants, a pair of sweatpants, and a few shirts from his water-logged apartment. “If I had no money right now, I’d be lost.” All four are tenants at 1523 Chapel St., a 45-unit building near the corner of Winthrop Avenue that is owned by an affiliate of Mandy Management. A total of 55 displaced tenants — including Bharadwaj, Smedley, Schroeder, and Kyle, who asked to be identified by only his first name — spent Tuesday night in 26 different rooms at the La Quinta Inn Suites on Long Wharf after a fire wrecked half of the third floor of their century-old apartment building, which goes by the name “Winthrop Terrace.” Fortunately, no firefighters or tenants were hurt during the blaze. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The city’s Building Department has officially condemned the property, according to city spokesperson Lenny Speiller. That means “it cannot be reoccupied until reinspected” by the Building Department and “cleared to have met all required state building code standards.” On Wednesday, the Livable City Initiative (LCI) and Mandy Management worked together to open the building to tenants from between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to allow them to retrieve belongings they had left behind when fleeing the fire. “Our team has been working around the clock to support residents during this transition,” Mandy CEO Yudi Gurevitch told the Independent in an email statement. “In addition to the initial hotel placement, Mandy agents are actively assisting households in securing suitable replacement apartments, including transfers to other available units where possible. We are coordinating closely with LCI and local partners to help residents identify stable, longer-term housing solutions.” (See below for Gurevitch’s statement in full.) Roommates Kyle and Juan said that they were in the hospital Tuesday at the time the fire broke out. Juan was undergoing a sinus surgery. They returned home to find their building fire-damaged, closed, and uninhabitable. After rescuing their dog — a chihuahua named Leo — they decamped to the La Quinta for the night. They left Leo at the hotel Wednesday as they returned to pick up clothing, medication, and — top of mind for Kyle — more than 15 fish spread across three fish tanks. “I haven’t gotten any sleep,” Leo said about how stressful it’s been since the fire displaced them from their apartment. Leo and Kyle walked up five flights of stairs — stopping on the third floor to snap a photo of burned-out wreckage. They were accompanied by LCI Housing Code Inspector Rick Mazzadra, who used a flashlight to help the tenants navigate a building plunged into darkness after the power had been cut. Mazzadra was one of more than half a dozen LCI employees on scene to assist the tenants as drove or took buses to and from the Long Wharf hotel and the Chapel Street building to get their belongings. Upon walking through their apartment’s front door, Kyle turned left into a bedroom and walked right over to his freshwater fish tanks. He breathed a sigh of relief seeing that the fish — a mix of tetras, barbs, and Siamese algae eaters — appeared to be OK. “Come on guys,” he said as he cupped water into a Home Depot bucket and then used a net to extricate the fish from the tank. “I can’t leave them here to die.” He then walked to the other side of the bed to retrieve one last fish — a guppy — swimming in its own smaller tank. “That’s all I worried about. Just the fish,” Kyle said after he had gotten them all into the water. Now he had to figure out where to bring them. To the hotel? To a pet store? To a friend’s? Ten minutes earlier and two floors down, Smedley walked through his third-floor apartments living room and kitchen. Smedley, 37, said he’s lived at 1523 Chapel St. for the past seven years. Before that, he said he was homeless and sleeping in a tent in different parts of the city. He’s worried that if he can’t find a new apartment in a week, he’s going to end up back on the street. Smedley too had rescued a pet on Tuesday — his black tabby, Shadow. He came back to his apartment on Wednesday to pick up a few asthma inhalers, as well as his PS5. “I’m grabbing that because I might need to sell it,” he said about the home-gaming console. Mazzadra, holding a flashlight, asked Smedley if he wanted to bring the PS5 controller with him, too. No, Smedley replied, it was broken. As he gathered his meds and his PS5 and began the walk back downstairs, Smedley thought through the uncertain time ahead. “I just don’t want to be outside” and homeless again, he said. Bharadwaj, a 26-year-old Master’s of Finance Enterprise Risk Management student at UConn in Stamford, took a break from rolling a suitcase along the snowy Chapel Street sidewalk to think back on when the first first broke out Tuesday. He said it was around 11 a.m., he had just woken up, and he was in the kitchen with his headphones on, listening to the heavy-metal band Iron Maiden and making green tea. He described that as his morning ritual. Bharadwaj said he didn’t hear the fire alarm blaring thanks to his headphones. “I just smelled the smoke while I was sitting in the living room” after finishing making his tea. He said he opened his apartment door, saw flames bursting forth down the hall, ran back in to wake up two of his roommates, grabbed his keys, and then sprinted downstairs. Bharadwaj is originally from New Delhi, India. He said he’s been in the U.S. since last August. He said that Mandy Management, LCI, and the Red Cross have all been very helpful so far. He singled out for praise the city firefighters who responded so promptly to put out the blaze and rescue tenants on Tuesday; if this were New Delhi, he said, he would have had to wait half an hour for firefighters to arrive. He said that he and three of his roommates stayed up almost all night in their double room at the La Quinta Tuesday, processing the day they’d just been through. He said that the Red Cross had provided “loads of food” for the displaced tenants at the hotel, including two types of turkey sandwiches and a chicken soup that was “pretty amazing.” In a phone interview with the Independent Wednesday afternoon, Schroeder said that a lot of his life right now feels “up in the air” after the fire. Although he’s confident he’ll be able to find a new place to live soon, he said he doesn’t have a license and is concerned about how he’s going to transport all of his belongings from 1523 Chapel. “Moving my stuff is going to be a complete pain in the butt.” Schroeder too said that Mandy, LCI, and the Red Cross “have been really helpful” in the wake of the fire. He said his apartment was on the first floor and was “completely flooded” after the firefighters’ response to the blaze. “My bedroom was spared,” he said, but “my living room, TV, couches [were all] destroyed.” He said he’s lived in the apartment for ten years, has never missed rent, but never acquired renter’s insurance. “It’s just really stressful.” While the fire department is still investigating the official cause of Tuesday’s fire, Schroeder said he “figured out how it happened”: a neighbor on the third floor told him that a tenant on that floor had left her stove top on before leaving the building. “That’s probably what’s going to come back” as the fire’s cause. He said a friend called him while he was at work to let him know his building was on fire. Schroeder said he got to his building at the same time as the first firefighters, and saw them use a bucket and then a 50-foot ladder to rescue people who were trapped on the fifth floor. “It was really crazy.” Asked how the hotel was, Schroeder said he was able to sleep Tuesday night. He said the rooms don’t have refrigerators, so food is a bit of a “weird problem.” “Those are small things, man,” he said. “I’m alive.” See below for a full statement provided to the Independent Wednesday afternoon by Mandy CEO Yudi Gurevitch. Mandy Management Statement As of yesterday, the City of New Haven formally condemned the building and determined it is not safe for occupancy. All 45 households therefore were displaced as a result of that order. We are cooperating fully with the Fire Marshal as the investigation into the cause of the fire continues. Hotel accommodations at La Quinta were promptly offered to every resident, and approximately 30 individuals are currently staying there, while others have made alternative arrangements. Mandy Management is covering the cost of these accommodations.  Residents have also been provided catered meals, transportation assistance through bus vouchers coordinated by the City, and supervised access both today and yesterday to their apartments through the Livable City Initiative (LCI) to retrieve essential belongings. Our team has been working around the clock to support residents during this transition. In addition to the initial hotel placement, Mandy agents are actively assisting households in securing suitable replacement apartments, including transfers to other available units where possible. We are coordinating closely with LCI and local partners to help residents identify stable, longer-term housing solutions. Under the terms of the lease agreement, when a fire renders a property uninhabitable, the lease terminates immediately and rent obligations cease as of that date. We are working directly with residents to address next steps, including deposits and individual circumstances. Our main office remains the primary point of contact, and we are staying in close communication with every affected household to support their well-being during this difficult time. Mazzadra (center) and Smedley walk downstairs from the third floor. Yikes. Smedley with his PS5. Mandy maintenance man Mack, standing guard on the third floor. The fish survived! The post Fire-Damaged Building Condemned; Tenants Return For Clothes, Meds, Fish appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less