With Happy Land Fire Anniversary Approaching, Film Will Commemorate Tragedy

January 25, 2010

By HANNAH DREIER

In the wee hours of the morning on March 25,1990, Delmo Flores arrived on the corner of Southern Boulevard and East Tremont Avenue, and watched in horror as a fire consumed the Happy Land social club, where he had planned on spending the rest of the night. The dance club lacked emergency exits, sprinklers, and exit signs, and an arson fire started by a jealous lover with $1 worth of gasoline and two matches spread quickly, trapping and killing 87 people within minutes. It was one of the deadliest mass murders in New York history.

Twenty years later, Community Board 6, in conjunction with the not-for-profit television station Bronxnet, is collecting stories like Flores’ for a short documentary which will commemorate the anniversary of the Happy Land fire. In addition to eyewitness accounts, the documentary will feature interviews with families who lost loved ones in the blaze, local leaders who helped the community through the tragedy, and the detective assigned to the case.

CB6 will show the documentary in late March, during its annual Happy Land memorial activities, and the film may also be broadcast on Bronxnet and posted online. The annual CB6 event consists of a Sunday Mass and a procession to the Happy Land monument, which stands on a traffic circle across the street from the former site of the social club. This year, the Mass will be held on a stage outdoors, and will be followed by a screening of the new documentary.

“This is something of great significance to us when it comes to the safety of the residents, to keep reminding them that this should not happen,” said CB6 District Manager Ivine Galarza. “Of course it is also important to keep the memory of the victims alive, and to have a place for the families of the victims to come with their grieving.”

Bronxnet reporter German Cayetano, who is also working on the project, echoed Galarza’s desire to raise public awareness about fire safety.

“It’s a preparation for the future,” said Cayetano. “People need to prepare for the future, and we need to learn from our mistakes.”

Months before the deadly fire, Happy Land had been designated a “firetrap” by the Buildings Department commissioner, and ordered closed. However, the club continued to operate with apparent impunity. In the aftermath of the fire, city officials began cracking down on fire code violations throughout the borough, and CB6 set up an ongoing detail with the local police and fire department to periodically inspect clubs for possible safety hazards.

In addition to bringing attention to fire safety issues, the Happy Land tragedy also had lasting ramifications for the Garifuna community — a small Central American ethnic group which has struggled to retain a cohesive immigrant identity. Most of those killed in the fire were of Honduran descent, and a great many were Garifuna. The scattered community rallied around the tragedy.

“Everyone comes out when a problem arises,” recalled Flores. “You see people you haven’t seen in forevser, because the Garifuna are disappearing everywhere.”

Cayetano is himself Garifuna, and hopes that the documentary will inspire his community to take better care of itself.

“It’s a form of returning back to the community what I got from it,” he said.

However, Galarza is careful to emphasize that people from all backgrounds were affected by the event, and hesitates to give ownership of the tragedy to any particular community.

“Since [the fire], there has been a large migration of Garifuna to our community, and they have expressed major interest in the event,” Galarza explained. “But not all of the victims were Garifuna.”

Galarza is also wary of the invasion of privacy the documentary might represent for families of the victims. For example, Cayetano hopes to interview the arsonist responsible for the Happy Land fire, who is currently serving a life term in prison, but Galarza is worried about sensationalizing the event.

“I know the media would love that,” she said of the proposed interview, “but there’s a sensitivity issue attached to this, and family members are very sensitive to all that.”

Sensationalism aside, Galarza does want to bring what she sees as the right kind of attention to the tragedy. Without the CB6 event, she said, “the family members would suffice with having the mass, quietly, and going to the memorial, quietly, and no one else would bring it up.”

For his part, Flores is just happy that a documentary is being made.

“People are leaving Happy Land behind,” he said. “There are people who were too young, and they are forgetting it. It’s important for a general audience to see this, because everyone needs to understand what happened — we need to learn from our mistakes.”

Written by admin · Filed Under Latest, News/Features 

Comments

Got something to say?