00:00:06
hey weirdos I'm Ash and I'm Elina and this is [Music] morbid this is morbid on this dreary
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cloudy day I know but it's Friday it's Friday spring you know Springs in the air yesterday was Gorge yeah like my
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littlest one found some flowers growing out of the the Earth and she was like that means spring is coming yeah and I
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was like correct Indo nailed it good job little one just Mom things so yeah spring is
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coming that's fun I'm trying to think if there's any other fun stuff coming up oh
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um the sequel to my book The Butcher and the ren the sequel being the butcher game is coming out September 17th and I
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can finally talk about it and when can people pre-order it uh now oh you can pre-order it right now we'll put the
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links and all the show notes going forward so that you can always be you can always be getting it I know it's not
00:01:17
a tiny URL and we regret to inform you we do regret to inform you but it gets its own thing it's going to be the
00:01:23
butcher game.com which that's cool it's got its own [ __ ] domain fun pretty fun she's a she's an adult we're going
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to have some fun stuff going through the year to promote this book like stay tuned cuz there's some really cool stuff
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and I promise you this one's longer it's twisted it's there's a lot there's a lot
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happening in this book so I I'm telling you go Get It Go Get It you won't be you
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won't be disappointed no definitely not that's my guarantee yay and manifest you know
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manifest I love it but yeah go get it cuz that's awesome and really fun and it's a series now so it's the Dr red
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meller Series so uh take take with that what you will that's really cool you how
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many do you think there there will be ultimately I don't know are you going to be like like uh doing a little Patricia
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over there just never end it do a little Patricia Cornwell little patri my girl Patric Trish uh I could I could never
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but I I can only hope to you could have the series go on Long look up to her and
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say Can I Be Like You Someday me too Patric me too Patric Trish uh that's actually that's one of those that's one
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of those like I need to meet them in my life people Patricia Cornwell Stephen King I just want to talk to both of them
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I mean you're a two-time author now so one step closer fancy fis fis I can be like I know how both of you have are
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literally prolific and have written a billion in four books together that are all
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iconique uh you want to talk to me maybe you could go to like a writers Retreat together ooh we could all how
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fun would that be actually I was looking into writers Retreats for Christmas for
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you but then I was like that [ __ ] doesn't like to leave her house that's not a good gift like you know it would
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be so perfect a writer's Retreat she could go away and then I was like go away nope you're like yeah she won't do
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that but that was really nice of you to think about that I know I'm so kind but yeah you know I'm so
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kind you're like I know I know Mother Teresa over here but yeah but go go get that book go pre-order it there's a post
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that you can get too limited time it's signed and it's fun there's all kinds of fun stuff there's going to be sign
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copies at Barnes & Noble all the good stuff love bar but that's all the fun stuff out of the way because today is
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going to be uh very morbid it usually is very morbid this is uh a case this is a
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kind of case that we don't cover often this is a fire oh it's an arson a pretty horrific one as well we haven't covered
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a lot of arson we haven't no and we sprinkle them in every once in a while but there there's just so much loss of
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life in these that it's pretty horrific to research to be honest and it's this one's so sad and so senseless oh man in
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so many ways that's the thing there's many layers of senselessness to this there always is um now when this episode
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airs on wonder plus actually it will be one day after the 34th anniversary of this tragedy oh wow Ely um so yeah so it
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happened 34 years pretty much close to the day uh and what's sad is like as time goes on with
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these kind of things the anniversaries become less and less of a thing that people notice is happening because some
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of the family members are gone now time goes on like you know it's not in the headlines all that stuff and it's sad
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that it just kind of Fades so hopefully this this can do a little bit to bring it back into you know people's ears at
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least at this time yeah just to recognize it's an important it's you know about safety measures in you know public
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areas it's about um you know people not being like cities not being concerned for the safety of mostly immigrant
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communities like they get pushed off to the side and their safety isn't really of concern for the most part it really
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touches upon that and it also touches upon domestic violence and oh wow somebody trying to punish someone for
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not getting back together with them wow so it it's got everything it's got everything so um interestingly I first
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heard of this fire way young very young so this happened in 1990 okay like I said 34
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years ago um so I heard about it because uh a little band called Duran Duran I think I've heard of them yeah they they
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made a song about it called sin of the city it's actually you loved that song loved that song when I was younger my
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brother loved Duran Duran shout out to JP hey J he made me listen to Duran all the time so I became obsessed with Duran
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they're so [ __ ] we actually saw them live like a few years ago it was great uh Simon Lebon is still like loved him
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uh but they made a song about this and it's actually a very good song like go listen to it but uh that's the first I
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had heard about this and I remember hearing the words and being like wait is this like I thought it was just like a
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fictional thing I was like wow what a terrible thing to make a like make fictional you know like you just came up
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with that and sang a song about it it's like our episode with Ronnie and Ben like all the dark events that then lead
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to songs yes and this is one of those and when I found I don't know if we touched upon Senate City I feel like we
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didn't I feel like you might have mentioned it in passing but we didn't like deeply go into it yeah maybe we'll
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have to add it to the next you know yeah I want to do another one of those we want to do another one of those we
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should have Ronnie and Ben back on to do another one of those obviously um and also congratulations to Ronnie and Ben
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for winning best pop pop culture podcast at the ihar awards they are the best pop
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culture podcast I have a I have like a roster I guess you could say of like I don't know probably like six or seven
00:07:04
podcasts that I listen to they're the best one Ronnie and Ben for life I love them truly so congrats to them they
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deserve it um so again on the evening of March 24th 1990 nearly 100 patrons gathered to
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celebrate carnival at the Happyland Social Club the evening took a deadly turn however when around 3:30 a.m. an
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explosion of fire roared up the stairway leading to the second floor of the club
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blocked the only exit there was only one yes and we will get into that from the building and they tra and it trapped all
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the P patrons in the room rapidly filling with toxic smoke and fire even now it's unknown how many patrons
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actually managed to escape the fire because there wasn't a lot of like it was very LAX with how this was all run
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so they didn't know how many people were actually in the club right uh but by the
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time that they knew they know there was at least 100 people in there but by the time the fire department had
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extinguished the fire 87 people were dead wow 8 seven people died in this that's a mass tragedy yeah the arson at
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the Happyland Social Club remains one of the deadliest fires in New York history
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and in a bizarre coincidence it occurred on the 79th anniversary of the city's deadliest fire the Triangle shirt waist
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fire uh factory fire of 1911 oh wow that's Haun strange haunting and is that pointed in any way or it's just a
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coincidence just a coincidence wow yeah total coincidence oh that's creepy now social clubs are something that I'm sure
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um a lot of people either don't really know what they are or maybe have the wrong idea of what they are like I know
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I wasn't totally sure what they were I heard the term I've just never really um so social clubs are basically meeting
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places where people in communities can gather outside their homes or workplaces um they're typically formed around a
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shared interest one of the more easily recognizable types of Social Clubs found in the United States specifically are
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those that cater to specific minority or immigrant communities like Greek American clubs or Cuban American clubs
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or Italian ameran clubs yeah that makes sense um these are great because especially for individuals that are
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newly arrived in the states they often time you know these people come with no social networks or limited social
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networks and these clubs not only help them maintain a connection to their culture and Heritage but they also act
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as kind of a like a like a Lifeline incon yeah a very a big lifeline and for important resources for things like
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education employment other Civic and social needs like in the simplest terms these types of Social Clubs can serve as
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a life to line for many people attempting to settle in an unfamiliar place and just being able to like reach
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out and grab onto their own community and rely on them and integrate their way into what they want to do so it's
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important recognize that while social clubs May hold dances or you know operate cafes or other Revenue
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generating activities they're not the same as like a nightclub or like a coffee house that's not what they're
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supposed to be okay uh their primary mission is to serve a segment of the community in the same way as like a
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recreation or Community Center does okay that makes sense in New York City for example clubs like Harlem's alany
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cultural center and familia unas in the East Village provide provided a refuge for the city's large Latin American
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population and offered spaces where they could celebrate and engage with their art and culture that was at the time
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especially pretty much unavailable for them in the mainstream around themed so it was really the only place they could
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go to actually connect with that which which I'm like I hate that you that's all that they can go to you know what I
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mean obviously it's changed now but um Migdalia De Jesus Torres who is a professor from John Jay College of
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Criminal Justice said they serve as an important role in the adaptation and assimilation process they serve as a
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needed introduction to American life and they serve to preserve the culture and traditions of the Home Country so it
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seems like a great thing it really does yeah now again while while most social clubs are anchors for the communities
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they serve some you know historically have been used for questionable unsavory or nefarious purposes because people are
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always going to be people in people going people wherever there's this nice great thing that's useful and wonderful
00:11:32
and helping people get ahead and helping people connect there's going to be a segment of any kind of community where
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they take it into a different direction they're going to keep it that weird exact people are the weird that I tell
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you not to keep it exactly just people are always going to people at the end of the day we find this out time and time
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again they're always going to people now beginning in the 1960s the New York law
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enforcement uh and City administrators began seeing a trend of Social Clubs being being used as fronts or bases as
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of operation for organized crime families uh a New York detective told the New York Times in 1986 social clubs
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are regularly used as meeting places and message centers for copos under bosses and their liut tenants I find that stuff
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so interesting yeah so while these types of operations were rare by the 1980s like I said people always got a People
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there's always a segment that does it they nonetheless highlight the complicated political and economic
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problems that these kind of businesses could present this segment of these businesses in some cases the missions of
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Social Clubs will qualify them for tax exempt status but many are likely to be entirely unregulated illegally run
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businesses and because of that they really don't pay a lot of attention to things like fire codes liquor laws
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occupancy regulations and that's not saet measures so throughout the 1970s and 80s New York City experienced a
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significant boom immigration with more than a million new residents coming from diverse Geographic locations and as a
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result of this population transformation Social Clubs became more important than
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ever with many newcomers just trying to integrate while still maintaining that connection to their culture and Heritage
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so it was a very important thing to have while the existence of the clubs themselves was by no means a problem the
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increasing informality with that some were being opened up with was becoming an issue because there they were
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violating a number of laws zoning codes and that was becoming an issue to the cops mhm but the growth of a much
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younger population also meant that these illegally run clubs not the regular Social Clubs the illegally ones were
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starting to resemble more nightclubs than Civic and community centers because this is a younger population that's now
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taking over these unsavory ones so they're making it they're putting their own Pizzaz on it yeah exactly like
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they're doing it illegally and they're putting their own Pizzaz on it realistically they're just making
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nightclubs and calling Social Clubs exactly so by the late 1980s there were hundreds of Social Clubs operating
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around the city a lot of them were illegal in that they had no license to operate a business serve alcohol or host
00:14:16
events there um but these were minor offenses in the grand scheme of things but they did contribute to the attitude
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of general like just casualness with regard to operations that put patrons health and safety at risk um in addition
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to operating out of buildings that were already in violation of safety codes themselves just the buildings oh man
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many clubs continued serving alcohol way into the early hours of the morning like
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way past the point you're allowed to well actually when you said something about this happening at 3:30 I was like
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wait how is it still open at that point um it's also I mean we're also from Boston where we have a very different
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view of like when things are open until like we're like what you're open until past 12 like what yeah now I think it's
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like what is everywhere else is sitting there being like yeah of course they're open at that like this is we're just
00:15:08
weird like up here we're just like everything closes down everything closes like last call is like I think
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everything closes at 2 or 2:30 now yeah I think and that's new it used to be earlier than that my whole like going
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out life was like around that time that's newer yeah like it used to be even earlier um so this so yeah so
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basically you know when people are drinking way too far into the early morning hours it is creating an unsafe
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environment there's an increased risk of violence accidents to happen you know it's not good it's like our moms always
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told us nothing good ever happens after midnight it's true it's so true but the biggest problem however was that many of
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these Social Clubs operated in spaces like we said that have no safety have a lot of safety violations but they lacked
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proper ventilation working sprinklers or even fire alarms they had an adequate amount of exits other various issues
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that were definitely going to increase the danger and risk if there was ever an emergency in these places and that's
00:16:08
really scary cuz you have to realize that a lot of these people going out to these places don't know that like of how
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many places do you walk into and you're like I know the building operator here and I know that this place is up to an a
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exactly that's the thing not everybody walks in and knows where all the exits are and knows that everything's and as
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we'll see sometimes in these places there would be more than one exit that had an exit sign over it like an
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emergency exit you would open the door and it would just led to a brick wall or something that's so it was like people
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would be running into like it's really bad that's scary so uh in fact by the mid 1980s Social Clubs had become quote
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the sites of some of New York's worst blazes resulting in many deaths after fires broke out and Confused or very
00:16:51
intoxicated patrons couldn't find or access an exit which is horrific yeah by the late 80s Community complaint about
00:16:59
social clubs and their safety violations had reached an all-time high uh but law
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enforcement were at a loss for how to deal with the problem and like we said it gets put on the back burner for
00:17:09
various reasons well especially like in New York City like a place where there's
00:17:13
like tons of [ __ ] going on it's not okay but you can see how it happens oh yeah
00:17:19
like there's definitely and um one of the firefighters in the Bronx Tony D'Angelo said we closed down a few but
00:17:25
some entrepreneur would just open it a few blocks away Tony De Ango Tony deangel I could not get pass without
00:17:32
saying Tony D'Angelo from the Bron my guy Tony D'Angelo see him he's a firefighter he said I don't know they
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just open it a few blocks down uh so due to the informal nature it's difficult to
00:17:45
pinpoint like we said ex like anything about Happyland Social Club when it comes to like figuring out who was how
00:17:51
many people were in there that night it's also hard to pinpoint when it opened exactly as a social club oh wow
00:17:57
um as far as anyone can really tell the building that the club was in at 1959 Southern Boulevard off East Tremont
00:18:05
Avenue in the Bronx was purchased in 1985 the year I was born hey by Alex D Lorenzo who was a New York real estate
00:18:12
developer who actually was part of a family that once was the largest property owners in the city [ __ ] uh as
00:18:18
soon as the purchase was complete he leased the entire building for 49 years to Little Peach realy Inc um this was a
00:18:26
property development and management company run by Jay Weiss um Jay Weiss was actually the husband at the time of
00:18:33
act actress Kathleen Turner uh in September 1987 Little Peach realy entered into a 7-year suble agreement
00:18:41
with many tenants who open businesses in that building including Elias cologne o
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owner of Happyland Social Club so that's at least the train of how it became into
00:18:51
being all right in March 1988 Elias cologne and his Partners Raphael kamacho and Jesus David Cruz filed incorporation
00:19:00
paperwork with the city and established Happy Land Social Club they informed their new landlords that they intended
00:19:06
to operate this club as a bar and Game Room the incorporation and other legal filings allowed the club to operate as a
00:19:13
tax exempt Tavern but it appears that neither cologne nor his business partners ever obtained a license to
00:19:20
serve alcohol on the premise of this um also a license to operate a Tavern was not the same as a license to open
00:19:27
operate a social club or a dance club okay which is very confusing it's like these licenses like you can operate as
00:19:34
this but not as this but not as that but this and it's like what I could see where that would get confused I could
00:19:38
see where that could get confused that part I can get like the license thing I can me personally is so confusing to me
00:19:46
so I can understand how anybody would be confused uh buying a house is confusing
00:19:51
I can't imagine like owning a property that I was supposed to like get different licenses for it would very
00:19:56
much confuse me so I I can't say anything about that um but it appears that everyone in the neighborhood
00:20:02
understand understood that Happyland was a fully operational social club that definitely serve drinks it should be
00:20:09
noted that following the fire Raphael kamacho told reporters that he had no idea he was listed as an agent with
00:20:16
Happy Land and if his name had been listed on any incorporation paperwork he said it was done without my consent oh
00:20:23
that's sh so that's interesting when they opened in 1987 Happyland do occupied two large
00:20:29
storefronts on the ground levels one of which had once housed a smaller Social Club so it had already operated As One
00:20:36
MH um and as a bar and Game Room the club was explicitly forbidden to admit anyone under the age of 21 Fair a
00:20:44
regulation that was routinely ignored by cologne and Club staff not great now despite the questionable business
00:20:50
practices Happyland did enjoy early success with the Latin American community in the South Bronx um they
00:20:57
honestly had few social spaces to together which is sad that is sad um William cornblum who was a researcher
00:21:03
with the City University of New York said people really love these clubs the prices they charge for food and drinks
00:21:09
are lower the customers all know each other they can speak their own language and a lot of times they have a running
00:21:14
account all right so it just sounds like a place where you feel it's like cheers
00:21:18
everybody knows your name or it's like you know the Olive Garden when you're he your family family so despite the club
00:21:25
success the problem started not long after opening in sep M 1988 just a few months after it was opened there were
00:21:32
three arrests made at the club for selling liquor without a license uh their fourth citation since opening and
00:21:38
then less than two months later the club was ordered closed for imminent danger to safety and life of the occupants oh
00:21:45
wow this was only a few months after it was opened that's not great the order said the building lacked a second
00:21:50
exit no fire alarms and no sprinkler systems okay we got to take care of those those big ticket it and it had no
00:22:00
emergency lighting so if anything were to happen it would just be pitch black oh my god
00:22:06
um per the suble agreement Little Peach realy had the right to evict Happyland in the event that any governmental
00:22:12
agency complained about the business but none of the little Peach's Executives were very involved with their tenants so
00:22:19
they took no action oh no so they let this happen as well 6 months later however Lil Peach did serve cologne a
00:22:28
notice of their intention to evict after the club had fallen more than $3,000 behind on the rent yikes uh but they
00:22:35
because they can't operate they've been closed down now at this point exactly but they never filed any paperwork in
00:22:39
court okay so they were going to evict them because they didn't pay but they weren't going to evict them based on the
00:22:44
fact that it was like a death trap essentially it like but you're not paying me now so that's like come on
00:22:50
guys lots of lots of complicit people here people are always going to people and when you hear about this kind of
00:22:56
thing there's some amazing people in the world that prove us all wrong but there
00:23:00
are some people that are always going to people and they are always going to be looking out for themselves and not even
00:23:05
consider loss of life as an issue and nine out of 10 times it's a money thing it's always money now although they had
00:23:11
been officially closed by the city cologne continued to operate Happyland in May while the club was supposed to be
00:23:18
closed Carlos Negron a local business owner rented out the club from cologne for $500 to have a private party um
00:23:26
according to Carlos at one point during the party the second floor Shook and partly fell apart no no
00:23:34
yeah yeah that's bad now as a result cologne replaced happy land's entire second floor totally renovating the
00:23:42
Dance Floor putting in a new lighting system so he made Renovations now this was uh this would have been a shock to
00:23:49
cologne's landlord because uh when they rented it to Cologne it didn't have a second
00:23:55
floor what so there were they would have been like is excuse me the roof is coming in is that what that meant they
00:24:01
just didn't have a second floor they just built a second floor what yes that's why it was so
00:24:07
shoddy and like falling apart they had just built a second floor hand oh no now based on rumors that Happy Land was
00:24:15
still operating City officials would routinely go by the club just to see if there was any activity going on I was
00:24:20
going to say yeah but he sh they went the club appeared to be closed interesting July they should have
00:24:26
changed up their times right in July 1989 a surprise visit from the local commi The Liquor Commission found that
00:24:33
Not only was the club reopened without approval but it was once again selling alcohol without a license an officer
00:24:38
from the public morals division was on hand for the visit I'm sorry the public morals Division I so glad you went back
00:24:45
to that sounds like such a dick Division I realized they Pro they're probably doing great work I don't know what they
00:24:51
well clearly they're they're for a reason for sure but the name you got to Rebrand it's giving Leslie nope you need
00:24:57
a Rebrand you like you got to the public morals no it reminds me of um uh flick uh from Reese
00:25:07
Witherspoon from election Tracy flick that's what it's giving me and since you haven't seen that that will not hit as
00:25:15
hard with you but it will hit with someone listen The Listener it's giving me Tracy flick uh but they were on hand
00:25:21
for the visit and the happan bartender Santos batis was arrested for the violation the bartender yeah according
00:25:27
to batis he was not the regular bartender at the club and was only on hand to help out with the party oh that
00:25:33
he's like I don't know well he claimed the owner told me one time he was going to get a license so he didn't think it
00:25:38
was a big deal just figured they had one I don't feel like I feel bad for him Santos batis I'm like he's just the
00:25:43
bartender he wasn't in the regular one I feel bad he was arrested that sucks it's
00:25:47
like wrong place wrong time yeah following the July arrest of batis for the liquor violation Happy Land was
00:25:53
inspected one final time on November 1st 1989 now this is only a year for the fire MH at which time officials found
00:26:00
the club closed and cologne claimed they had not been in operation but neighbors
00:26:05
later claimed that while the club had stopped keeping regular hours it was still open regularly for private events
00:26:10
and parties that's how they were keeping it going and making money to pay the rent yeah now while Happyland social
00:26:16
club and the hundreds of other informal clubs like it were definitely a thorn in
00:26:20
the side of a law enforcement and City officials I guess so it remained an inviting place for the Honduran
00:26:25
community in the Bronx who often felt excluded or ignored by mainstream American culture that's really shitty
00:26:32
which it it does suck that they have to operate like this to create a place where people feel like they are being
00:26:38
seen that's the thing the department of morals maybe get together and get them a
00:26:41
place where they can actually be safe and make it viable to for people and like make it something that they can
00:26:50
actually maintain and actually have you know cuz it sounds like the I don't know
00:26:55
what you have to go through to get a liquor license but I know it's a pretty arduous process so I'm not saying make
00:27:02
it easier but like maybe these people just needed some help some through the process a little bit cuz that might be
00:27:07
part of the issue I mean here there's a lot of shady [ __ ] happening in this one
00:27:10
in particular but I mean some other ones that like and I'm sure this one you know
00:27:14
like I'm sure the atmosphere was nice the people are nice so it's like it had a lot of potential right if the people
00:27:20
running it weren't being so shady but yeah I just I do think overall there needs to be like more help involved in
00:27:25
certain processes yes yeah exactly now with a $5 cover charge and just three bucks for a drink the club gave them a
00:27:32
place to get together to dance to hear some salsa ree calypso music just have a fun time most of these people are
00:27:39
working their asses off all day and this is just a place to let off some steam and night definitely um so Club regular
00:27:46
Fran omino was quoted was quoted as saying we all knew each other and he expressed that they appreciated that
00:27:51
sense of community connection that was provided by Happy Land club that's great now in the evening of March 24th 1990
00:27:59
nearly 100 people but like we said sources vary on exactly how many above that amount were packed into 60 by 20
00:28:07
foot Happyland to celebrate Carnival 60 by 20 foot and Carnival is like huge in that culture like it's a it's a
00:28:15
beautiful celebration we're in a Ruba for Carnival oh that's cool cuz Carnival is a period of mass celebration that
00:28:21
occurs right before lent and it really is it's such a celebration and the costumes the dance amazing celebration
00:28:29
and I'm sure this was just like this place was probably so much fun that you know what I mean but what a small area
00:28:36
yeah huge amounts of celebration going on so downstairs manura lagona was serving drinks at the bar uh but the
00:28:43
real party was upstairs on the second floor in the informal nightclub had not existed before had not existed before
00:28:49
the mood that night everyone who was able to say it said it was light and happy everyone was dancing having a
00:28:56
blast as DJ Ruben Val played moring and salsa records it was just like a good time yeah everyone was happy having a
00:29:03
great time around 2: a.m. however Julio Gonzalez arrived at Happyland to confront his former girlfriend Lydia
00:29:11
Feliciano who was working as the coach check that night at 36 years old Gonzalez had been a member of the Cuban
00:29:18
Army in the late 1970s but then he faked a drug tra trafficking incident in 1980
00:29:23
in order to be kicked out of the Army in the country huh at the time he was one of the countless Cuban citizens expelled
00:29:30
from the country by C Castro in the Marielle boat lift and sent to the us as a refugee Wow since arriving in the US
00:29:37
he had worked as a mechanic briefly he held some entry-level factory jobs you know made some quick cash washing cars
00:29:44
or pedaling on the street in the winter of 1990 however he had fallen on some hard times and was unemployed living in
00:29:52
a 10 square foot room in the Bronx oh my god um that according to all the sources
00:29:57
that I could find said that the only thing in that place besides where he was sleeping was just a picture of Jesus
00:30:03
Christ taped to the wall beside his bed wow so living in that kind of like just isolation yeah that's like solitary
00:30:10
confinement yeah now Julio and Lydia had been dating off and on for nearly 8 years until about 6 weeks earlier before
00:30:18
this when the couple broke up and Gonzalez had moved out of Feliciano's apartment into the room that he was
00:30:25
occupying right now although it's unclear why they ended things only that she had quote accused him of something
00:30:32
he had not done according to him okay which I'm like so something you did do yeah most that's usually the case uh
00:30:39
what is known is that Julio tended to be controlling and frequently demanded that
00:30:44
Lydia quit her job at Happyland he very controlling uh a short time after the breakup Gonzalez lost his job packing
00:30:52
boxes at a lamp Factory in Queens which caused him to fall behind on his weekly rent and according to his landlord quote
00:30:59
was down to his last hope so he was going through it now after drinking heavily for much of the evening of the
00:31:06
24th and early hours of the 25th Julio went down to Happyland intending to convince Lydia to get back together with
00:31:13
him arriving a little after 2 a.m. he approached Lydia at the coat check with what she described as a quote sarcastic
00:31:20
and ironic smile o but his tone was friendly she said that he said to her you see I'm here like the police they
00:31:26
come to a place unannounced too after arguing a little bit briefly Lydia told Julio that she quote didn't need him and
00:31:34
insisted that he should go at that point he left the coat check area he went around mingled with some other patrons
00:31:40
on the first floor for I think about a half an hour then he headed back up to the second floor and out of Lydia's
00:31:46
sight but returned a little bit after that to confront her again about 15 minutes after oh wow he said I know you
00:31:53
have a boyfriend it doesn't matter you and I until death oh oh which as soon as somebody says [ __ ] like that to you
00:32:00
that's toxic call someone toxic walk the other way that's really toxic [ __ ] oh my
00:32:05
god when Julio had first disappeared upstairs because of the first argument Lydia went to the bouncer Marvin Alicia
00:32:12
and told him that Julio was very drunk and had been harassing her so when he came back the second time to confront
00:32:18
her it was Marvin the uh the bouncer that intervened and actually escorted Julio out of the club cuz he like you
00:32:25
can't harass our employees yeah no please leave but before he left he turned back to Alisia The Bouncer and
00:32:33
said I'll be back oh that's really chilling now having failed to convince Lydia to get back together with him
00:32:42
Julio wandered the neighborhood for about a half hour just you know marinating in frustration anger and
00:32:49
drunkness um and about three blocks away from Happyland he stopped at the amoko gas station and purchased one gallon of
00:32:56
gas he he told the attendant his car had broken down uhhuh now he returned to the
00:33:01
club and he noticed someone standing outside so he went to a nearby pay phone and pretended to make a call once that
00:33:08
person left he began pouring the gasoline all over the stairs and entryway that led inside Happyland so to
00:33:14
be clear he premeditated this yep even so so far as hiding in a pay phone and pretending to be on a pay phone so the
00:33:23
person wouldn't catch them had plenty of time to change his mind and then he put
00:33:26
it all over the entrance like you know what you're doing of course you do standing on the sidewalk
00:33:32
he pulled a matchbook out of his pocket and lit two matches and then tossed them
00:33:35
onto the gasoline that was puddled in front of the front door that also leads you to believe that if somebody is
00:33:41
capable of doing something that deranged and depraved he probably did do whatever
00:33:47
Lydia yeah said he did yeah now the fire ripped up the stairs and into the building quickly sending everyone into a
00:33:54
panic the other exit from the building had been padlocked there was one other exit but it was padlocked to prevent
00:34:02
people entering without paying the cover charge it's like just put someone at that door yeah so the only exit was now
00:34:08
blocked by a raging fire oh my God Reuben Valderas the DJ recalled quote I heard a lot of people
00:34:16
screaming he had been dejing in the booth at the top of the stairs and realized there was still a chance to
00:34:21
escape so he which I was like heroic he called out to everyone if someone's going to leave follow me and he tried to
00:34:28
lead people out wow that just G me chills valaris was one of only six people to escape the fire that night and
00:34:33
when he managed to finally get out of the building he was engulfed in flames oh my God and would he sustained serious
00:34:40
burn injuries serious injuries Lydia had also managed to escape the building slipping out just before the fire broke
00:34:47
out and once outside she ran down the street and called a cab and never alerted anyone else to the fire or
00:34:54
called the fire department which is [ __ ] up that's so strange a lot of people pointed to that
00:35:01
too and were like what the [ __ ] was that about like I realized she you know whatever but it's like call the fire
00:35:08
department you not someone you not calling the fire department you know that there's only one exit you work
00:35:13
there maybe you know that it's a a packed Club if there's a fire raging in there call the fire department yeah
00:35:21
that's all you have to do don't you don't need to stick around like that's fine you're probably scared later she
00:35:25
says she was scared Julio was going to come back and hurt her outside which I totally understand that felt immediately
00:35:32
that it was him who had done that yeah wow and she was afraid that he was going to hurt her outside so that tells
00:35:38
you a lot about what was happening there so I totally understand why she jumped in a cab and was like get me the [ __ ]
00:35:44
out of here but but call or tell the cab driver like be like you got can somebody
00:35:49
contact somebody like there's she called a the cab yeah exactly so I don't know that just bothered me I was like oh man
00:35:56
not that I don't I don't don't even know if anything could have been done to stop
00:35:59
this to be quite honest which is even sadder um the fire department did arrive a few minutes later uh but by then the
00:36:07
entire Club was a blaze firefighter Jerry Mera said of that night quote I guess other than 9911 Happy Land was the
00:36:14
worst thing to ever happen to me as a firefighter wow as one of the First Responders he had an oxygen mask on and
00:36:21
he pushed his way through the hysterical crowd outside on the street and started
00:36:25
crawling his way up the stairs to the second floor firefighters I'm like you're real ones
00:36:31
like thinking about that I'm like you're just like crawling into a fire absolutely I never take a second to just
00:36:36
like really think about that no my brother-in-law is a firefighter and some of the [ __ ] he'll send us and like the
00:36:40
like they train and go into houses but even like then they get the real calls and he'll send pictures of what they'll
00:36:46
go into sometimes and I'm like oh my God yeah it's it's wild and just to like your human instinct is to run out of a
00:36:55
fire and the fact that these people train to run into a fire to save people is really wild so firefighters out there
00:37:02
like shout out to y'all snaps to you uh he said and this is this is horrific to think about he said when I got up there
00:37:10
it was just one after the other of people stacked up on the top floor oh that's I knew they were people and I was
00:37:17
just trying to get off them and the further I crawled I was just crawling on more and more people when he had made it
00:37:24
back outside he radioed the chief to report the fatalities and and when asked how many he just said numerous numerous
00:37:30
there's no way he could have counted aside from the six people on the first floor who were known to have escaped
00:37:36
there were 19 patrons who died on the first floor and the remaining 68 people were on the second floor and they were
00:37:42
all dead mostly from Suffocation though a few died from trampling or crushing injuries oh my God because the fire was
00:37:49
set at the bottom of the stairs the stairway acted like a chimney so it pumped smoke and carbon dioxide right
00:37:56
into the second floor when the Flames reached the second floor the toxic cloud was just exasperated by all the plastic
00:38:02
decorations and other materials that caught fire and made this like toxic poisonous smoke that was happening oh my
00:38:10
God cuz it was Carnival so it was all decorated for that plastic is going to turn into like poison oh my God so it's
00:38:18
awful it's awful and in their panic and Terror the patrons on the second floor probably became very confused making it
00:38:26
almost imp possible to find the stairs and it wouldn't have mattered if they had because they would have been
00:38:32
inaccessible by that they could have even gone in their last moments many slumped to the floor and held on to the
00:38:38
person person nearest to them as they died oh my God yeah it's horrific all because one man couldn't handle the fact
00:38:46
that he was being broken up one [ __ ] couldn't hand I should even say man yeah in a statement to reporters firefighter
00:38:53
Richard Harden said some looked like they were sleeping some looked horrified some looked like they were in shock some
00:38:59
people had torn their clothes off and they're Panic to get out it must have been a I can't even fathom that scene I
00:39:05
that would change you as a person it was the largest loss of life in a fire in New York since the Triangle shirt waist
00:39:11
factory fire which again in a bizarre coincidence occurred exactly 79 years earlier on March 25th 1911 that's so
00:39:20
scary yeah so we have the names of the Happyland Social Club victim and we are going to put them um either
00:39:30
on our socials or in the show notes wherever they cuz there's a lot so we want to like character wise we just want
00:39:35
to make sure they all fit in one place um so we will likely put a link to their names as well so that you can see all of
00:39:42
their names and how old they were um it's there's I mean there's people as young as 18 years old this fire you know
00:39:50
like it's these are people in their in their 20s 30s and just these people getting together to celebrate their
00:39:56
Heritage like it's supposed to be one of the happiest times of the year for them
00:40:00
exactly that's the thing and this one [ __ ] who was unhappy and couldn't do anything to [ __ ] get past
00:40:07
it wow it just ruined everyone's lives yeah so after fleeing the scene outside Happyland Julio went to the apartment of
00:40:15
his friend Carmen Melendez where he confessed that he poured fire around the exit of Happyland and set the club on
00:40:21
fire Melendez later said in court I asked him why he said I don't want Lydia to work there
00:40:28
Melendez didn't believe his story but he did seem incredibly upset she said and when she asked what he planned to do
00:40:33
next Tulio told her he was going to wait until the police could come get him then
00:40:37
he left melendez's apartment and went down the hall to his own room and went to sleep he just went to sleep yeah he
00:40:44
just went to sleep I'll just wait here until they come get me how the [ __ ] do you go to sleep after that that's a
00:40:51
monster it gets even worse cuz he watched the firefighters fight the fire he was outside watching them what mhm so
00:41:00
he went to sleep and then went back yep what a twisted [ __ ] or he at least watched them and then went to sleep one
00:41:08
or the other but either way now the following morning investigators interviewed the six known survivors
00:41:15
including Lydia Feliciano who told them about her argument with Julio and the threats he made before leaving the club
00:41:21
when police officers arrived at Gonzalez's room later that afternoon there was an overwhelming Sten of G
00:41:27
veline that per permeated his clothes and the entire room itself and when the officers told Julio why they were there
00:41:34
he seemed toand and didn't resist arrest at all um they said it was like he was being picked up for a traffic warrant it
00:41:41
was nothing he was sleeping he was sleeping that's disgusting once at the station Julio broke down into tears and
00:41:48
in an hour-long taped confession he admitted to starting the fire you're just crying cuz you got caught you're
00:41:54
not crying because of any of those people's lives that you took he said I knew that I was going to do damage but
00:41:59
not not of that intensity to cause the tragedy that occurred you lit a building full of 100 100 people on fire this is
00:42:07
the same kind of thing of people who poison people and go I was just trying to make them violently ill I didn't know
00:42:12
i' kill [ __ ] you're still an [ __ ] you're still an evil [ __ ] like you're still a piece of [ __ ] like I hate that
00:42:18
I'm like just cuz you wanted to cause a little less damage than you caused oops I caused like wild amounts of damage
00:42:25
you're an [ __ ] and I it's not believable no it's not action that you cuz if you can take that one piece that
00:42:31
you're telling me you wanted to do you wanted to cause damage you just didn't know you would cause that much you
00:42:35
didn't think anyone would die in that fire like come on or or the possibility was there you know about that club you
00:42:41
know there's one exit and it's like at that's the thing [ __ ] you lit the only exit on fire you knew exactly what
00:42:47
you were doing and that's not I didn't want her to work there that's I wanted to kill her cuz she didn't want to be
00:42:52
with me she didn't want to be with me so I figured I didn't want her to work there if you didn't want her to work
00:42:56
there you'd wait until after everybody left and then you'd set the place on fire that's what you would do and that
00:43:01
would still be [ __ ] ex that would still be [ __ ] up in his tearful confession Julio told detectives he was
00:43:06
drunk and angry because Lydia had broken up with him and he still loved her and wanted her back when she refused and
00:43:12
then asked the bouncer to escort him out he became enraged his first thought he said was to quote close the club for
00:43:19
good so she couldn't work there anymore this is even worse he was going to call the police and report them because he
00:43:26
knew of the illegal operations but he said I went with the fire instead are you kidding it just [ __ ] call the
00:43:31
police and get the party shut down and they try to go for an insanity defense with him and I'm like good try because
00:43:37
he's literally telling you in this confession she said she wouldn't get back together with me and have me
00:43:43
escorted out I was [ __ ] angry at her and I did this because I didn't want her to work here anymore and I could have
00:43:50
called and just reported them and had the place shut down and no one would have died but instead I went with a fire
00:43:56
cuz I want to hurt people CU I was that angry I was mad like that's it yeah wow now according to Julio he'd initially
00:44:03
fled the scene after setting the fire but came back a short time later and quote watch the firemen fight the fire
00:44:10
which like what is the [ __ ] pathology there he said it was then that he realized the extent of the damage he'd
00:44:16
caused and left the scene for a second time this time on a city bus to his neighborhood and he said that's when I
00:44:22
reflected and began to cry no I don't think so and he said I remembered again all that I had
00:44:27
done no one cares that you cried I don't know I there something about going back
00:44:33
and watching the damage is like get I feel like he got some weird enjoyment out of that [ __ ] up it's [ __ ] up
00:44:39
that's not yeah no no after giving his statement to detectives Julio was brought before Judge Alexander Hunter at
00:44:45
the Bronx criminal Bronx Criminal Court excuse me a little after 2 am on March 27th where he was formally charged with
00:44:52
87 counts of arson felony murder and 87 counts of Murder By depra cved indifference to human life that's
00:44:59
exactly what that is which is a perfect count as well as several other even lesser charges the judge ordered that
00:45:04
hulio be held without bail until a grand jury could be convened and Julio was taken to Kings County Hospital and held
00:45:10
in the psychiatric ward where he was put on suicide watch in a statement to reporters Bronx da uh Robert Johnson
00:45:17
said the maximum of 25 years to life doesn't nearly reach the level of premeditation involved in this crime
00:45:23
nope it sure doesn't now as the deadliest fire and nearly Century the tragedy at Happyland dominated the
00:45:30
headlines in the days and weeks following the fire of course but while some news news outlets were focusing on
00:45:35
the victims of the fire the majority emphasized the fact that the club was operating illegally and cited the number
00:45:41
of complaints the city had received about Happyland you know in the Years leading up to the fire and in response
00:45:47
to the tragedy mayor David dinkin immediately activated a task force of police officers and ordered them to
00:45:54
inspect the 173 active clubs operating in the city and look for any code violations which I was like you should
00:46:02
have done that weird that it took this like I don't like I hate that it takes this kind of thing for anybody to do
00:46:07
anything that many people shouldn't have had to die such horrific deaths for you
00:46:10
to take care of a problem if it was that quick and easy to put together the task force and they
00:46:16
went right to it that should have happened in his statement to the Press he said somebody will suggest that it is
00:46:22
important that these clubs open because it is an aspect of economic development jobs for these areas but let me tell you
00:46:28
anybody that has an opp opportunity to see those bodies laid up there will know that it's not a persuasive
00:46:34
argument now among his campaign promises was legislation to crack down on the informal social clubs around the city
00:46:42
but a bill promising exactly that was introduced a year earlier and failed to get any support so isn't that funny that
00:46:51
now that this has happened everybody's like oh we got to crack down and it's like well they actually tried to do that
00:46:55
a year ago you guys said go [ __ ] yourself so it's nice that you're doing it now how uh now
00:47:01
in the wake of the fire he was now vowing to put forth new legislation that imposed harsh penalties for any clubs
00:47:08
that violated fire and safety codes it's always how it goes it's always after Mass trag horrible M loss of life and
00:47:16
sometimes not even then yeah a few days later more than 100 New York City police
00:47:20
officers fanned out across the city to search for code violations many were very resentful for having to be on this
00:47:27
task force in the first place um one officer told the New York Times it's ridiculous last night we were out doing
00:47:33
this social club stuff and I could see felony drug sales going down whose list am I on to deserve
00:47:39
this that's your job how tasteless whose list are you on to deserve doing your job job either way it's your job like
00:47:47
the felony drug deal or the all your job the code violations you signed up for all of the above you get to do it all
00:47:54
whose list are you on are you [ __ ] whose list were these people on list are you on the list of employees at the New
00:48:00
York Police Department I think so like that's your job list are you on uh the payroll bye the payroll list that's what
00:48:06
you're on despite how they felt about the detail the task force members did find several flagrant violations of
00:48:12
safety and fire codes including one bar door under an exit sign that like I said
00:48:17
before opened to reveal a brick wall That's which is terrifying that's heinous well many cuz imagine being in
00:48:24
an emergency and you rush to that exit thinking you're it's a brick wall no while many news
00:48:30
outlets chose to focus on the illegal operation of the club and of Social Clubs more broadly or on Julio's
00:48:37
immigration and Refugee status some focused on the loss of life luckily that's good uh photos in the York New
00:48:43
York Times and news day among a few others showed family members gathered around large tables trying to identify
00:48:50
photos of those whose lives were lost in the fire Jerome Ford whose five family members died at Happy Land oh my God
00:48:58
said I told them not to go but kids are kids I knew it was dangerous like oh that hit so much
00:49:05
harder five family members and you told them not to go like please don't go there and he's like but kids like what
00:49:10
are you going to do yeah how many times you some 18year olds you know like they're not listening to you for many
00:49:16
New Yorkers the news about the fire victims was the first time they'd learned or even heard anything about the
00:49:22
large Honduran Community who'd made the Bronx their home wow this was their first time hearing ing in an article
00:49:28
published just 2 days after the fire the New York Times profiled Seven of the victims whose Futures were very bright
00:49:34
Israel bonness told the told the times they were not kids who were into drugs they just loved to dance yeah and his
00:49:42
son Tonio was one of the K ones killed at Happyland just three years after arriving in the United States oh my God
00:49:49
like many of the victims tono was young he was only 18 years old Wow and his life was as exciting and also mundane as
00:49:56
any young person's life is he loved basketball television music but he never lost sight of the opportunities he had
00:50:03
in the US and was intending to make the most of them yeah until this a lot of these people came here for better
00:50:09
opportunities and a lot of them were working their asses off during the day and this was them blowing off steam
00:50:15
right but they were working their asses off to make better opportunities here yeah the stories of the victims told in
00:50:20
the wake of the fire really reflects the stories and experiences of many who immigrate to the United States they
00:50:25
quickly fell in love with their new home they worked hard to make the most of the
00:50:29
chances that they've been given like 22-year-old Nicholas Zapata for example worked 10hour days on a construction
00:50:36
site and lived a very modest life sending most of his earnings back to his family in Honduras wow on the night of
00:50:42
March 24th Nicholas had just gone to meet with his friends will Castillo and Jose Diaz at Happyland like I said to
00:50:49
blow off some steam after a long work week yeah just hang out all three of them died in the fire that's so tragic
00:50:55
some reporters took the middle of the road approach balancing the focus on safety and you know in the the fire
00:51:01
codes and stuff with outrage over how lack the city was when it came to the safety of immigrants I think that's fair
00:51:07
in a scathing indictment of the city's Judicial System Newsday reporter Sydney shanberg wrote squadrons of police were
00:51:14
sent whizzing around the town to padlock every similarly unsafe Social Club in site but only N9 days after the mass
00:51:21
death when the owner of the fire trap building Alex D Lorenzo III was released on his own recogn
00:51:27
in a proceeding so benign that it makes traffic court look frightening by comparison the judge never even
00:51:32
mentioned the happy landfire what so Alex D Lorenzo is the the owner there yeah and he was released
00:51:40
and they just nothing just get nothing for all those code violations everything just doesn't matter and that the safety
00:51:48
yeah that the safety code violations of H at Happy Land would get so much attention obviously isn't unreasonable
00:51:54
it is very much part of the narrative uh you know had a second exit not been locked and the sprinkler system's been
00:52:01
operational it's possible that some if not most or not all of the patrons could have made it out with their lives
00:52:08
absolutely but the emphasis on fire codes illegal clubs and the landlords responsibility really overlooked the
00:52:14
fact that the fire was intentionally set by a frustrated little [ __ ] of a man who wanted to get revenge on a woman he
00:52:22
believed had wronged him yep by simply not be wanting to be with him so a reader of the New York Times actually
00:52:30
wrote a letter to the editor at one point saying all your articles on the burning of Happyland Social Club have
00:52:35
focused on the hazards of such illegal clubs in citing this as the reasons for the death you effectively ignore the
00:52:41
fire's cause a jilted lovers Revenge Julio Gonzalez's EV 87 murders demonstrate the Abomination that is Dom
00:52:49
domestic violence absolutely and it's 100% true and you can report on like basically just like you're doing right
00:52:56
now you can report the enti story for every single piece of misdoing but you need tolight the fact that none
00:53:05
of this would have happened had it not been for this [ __ ] that's the thing had he not intentionally set that
00:53:11
club on fire to hurt his ex-girlfriend for not loving him anymore then these code violations would
00:53:18
obviously need to be fixed anyways but we wouldn't be talking about them MH so it's like absolutely all of that
00:53:25
contributed but you you have to talk about that first thing that made this even a topic of
00:53:30
conversation and that is one man who committed our sin and I don't understand how that got lost in in the retelling of
00:53:37
this yeah it really it's wild at the time at least but truly safety measures aside no one at Happyland would have
00:53:45
died that night had Julio Gonzalez not acted out of a misogynistic desire to punish his ex-girlfriend yep that's it
00:53:55
the end of the that's it yeah so the variations in how the story was covered in the Press really like you were saying
00:54:01
like how are they just ignoring that it really illustrates the ways that American culture in 1990 was divided
00:54:07
over things like Public Safety immigration diversity and domestic violence there's a lot here and
00:54:13
unfortunately those divisions would be even more evident during Julio's trial really now because he had confessed
00:54:20
almost immediately after being arrested for the fire the trial of Julio Gonzalez
00:54:24
was not to be about whether he committed the arson that ended 87 lives but why he
00:54:30
did it and whether he could be held criminally responsible for his actions now in his opening statement on July
00:54:36
18th 1991 the prosecutor Eric Warner laid out the state's case that after failing in his attempt to persuade Lydia
00:54:43
to return to him Julio left the club to purchase gasoline that set the building on fire knowing that there were nearly
00:54:50
100 people who would be trapped inside among those called to testify on the state's behalf were seven of the nine
00:54:56
medical examiners who performed the autopsies wow all of whom detailed the extent of the horrific damage suffered
00:55:02
by those who died in the fire um but the most compelling witnesses to testify for
00:55:07
the state were Carmen Melendez the friend that Julio went to after setting the fire and Lydia herself who in her
00:55:14
brief testimony Melendez explained that Julio seemed to recognize that he had acted
00:55:20
irrationally irrationally and caused tremendous damage she told the jury quote he told me it was an error he had
00:55:28
made uh that's the understatement of the century that's not going to help him an
00:55:34
error he made as she left the witness stand and made her way out of the courtroom Carmen Melendez gave a small
00:55:40
wave to Julio and that outraged many of the victim's families who were in court that day yep how dare she put your
00:55:48
[ __ ] hand down there's a time in a place girl and it's not here or now yeah definitely not outside the courtroom
00:55:55
many of the family members surrounded and confronted her Rosario Alvarez whose husband was killed in the fire said I
00:56:02
asked how could you remain F friendly with someone who left so many children without a parent and she said she was
00:56:08
his friend you should look at your circle you should reevaluate your choices girl own that again like Tatiana
00:56:17
says you own that choices choices you own that so in her testimony Lydia Feliciano described the argument
00:56:25
she had with Julie shortly before the fire noting that he had made several ominous statements and threats
00:56:31
indicating his intention to do something very drastic if she would not return to
00:56:35
him the prosecution's intention was to demonstrate that rather being temporarily or otherwise mentally ill
00:56:42
and thus not responsible for these actions Julio knew precisely what he was doing when he set the fire Lydia's
00:56:48
testimony was vital to the prosecution's case but it was also pretty controversial because many family
00:56:54
members were angry that she simply fled L the scene rather than alerting someone
00:56:57
to the emergency I would be pissed uh Maria cologne wife of Happy Land owner Elias Cologne who died in the fire oh
00:57:05
said she screamed fire to herself she had time to call a taxi but she didn't have time to call the fire department I
00:57:11
mean valid point absolutely and in defense of her actions Lydia claimed she feared that Julio might return and harm
00:57:17
her on the street which is why she left without calling the fire department but I was like why didn't you call after
00:57:22
that's the thing you couldn't call when you got home like I know I don't know obviously cell phones were not very
00:57:28
common back then but I'm sure you had a phone at home call some or like a pay phone near your home yeah tell the taxi
00:57:35
driver and say can you go to the fire department can you report this yeah perhaps the most damning evidence in the
00:57:40
case was Julio's own confession which the jury heard in its entirety in the confession Julio can be heard admitting
00:57:47
to the DA that he knew the club was full that night he said yes yes there were many people many people yeah he was in
00:57:54
there and he said yes he talked to of those people exactly mingled with them mingled with them he said they were
00:58:00
dancing and when the da asked why if he if he knew it was full of people why did
00:58:04
he light it on fire I didn't think it was going to I didn't think it was going to take a lot
00:58:10
of intensity I didn't think that it was going to do uh that what the [ __ ] did you think it was going to do do you know
00:58:16
what fire is I like you know what fire does my friend what I didn't know what it was going to do it's a small Club if
00:58:22
you see a picture of this that place was going to go up in flames if you pour gasoline on something and light it on
00:58:29
fire that it's going to burn you know that that's basic exactly that's why you did it why else would you do it was it
00:58:35
just like a coincidence that you put Fire And Gasoline together just like whoopsie although the audio was
00:58:40
occasionally muffled and Julio did frequently rely on a translator the confession does make it clear that well
00:58:46
he may not have intended to kill 87 people Julio knew the risks when he lit the gasoline and set Happy Land on fire
00:58:53
at the very least yeah in his opening statement that defense attorney Richard Bernie told the jury his client admitted
00:58:59
causing the fire at Happyland but he had only done so because he was quote legally insane on the morning of March
00:59:05
25th incorrect he said ladies and gentlemen on March 25th 1990 Julio Gonzalez started the fire in the
00:59:11
Happyland Social Club you've all heard me concede that repeatedly he said I'm I'm conceding that he started the fire
00:59:18
but ladies and gentlemen when Julio Gonzalez started that fire he was legally insane in defense of their
00:59:23
Insanity defense Bernie called Andrew lugos one of the arresting detectives to testify on their behalf according to
00:59:30
lugos when he they asked Julio why he had set the fire and whether heend intended to kill everyone inside he said
00:59:37
he didn't know that something had gotten in him that the devil had gotten into him not the devil made me do it not good
00:59:45
enough to me also are there previous instances of the devil making you do things you just suddenly happen to go
00:59:50
insane this night stop it's like you already told her you told Lydia I'll be back you said till that you told the
00:59:56
bouncer I'll be back was the devil in you at that point or was that just you or was that just you while this seemed
01:00:01
to support the defenses assertion lugos also stated that Julio was very calm and
01:00:07
seemed to recognize what he had done and at no point did he appear to have any quote peculiar ideas that one might
01:00:13
recognize as a symptom of mental illness that's the thing there's no history there he also went to [ __ ] sleep
01:00:20
afterwards and came and watched yeah despite The Sensational headlines that followed in the wake of the fire the
01:00:26
constant in the constant outrage of zoning codes and fire St safety afterwards the trial itself was kind of
01:00:32
mundane reporters covering the case day after day started noting that it was kind of long stretches of numbingly
01:00:38
repetitive testimony occasionally punctuated with some interesting moments or good moments of testimony but
01:00:45
otherwise they referred to it as quite boring which I was like I'm sure the family members really appreciate that
01:00:50
that the trial of their loved for their loved ones was boring you yeah sorry about that so sorry that Bard you Jesus
01:00:57
it's like keep that to yourself in fact even the judge at one point turned to the jury and apologetically said this is
01:01:02
not the stuff from which television dramas were made that's because this is real [ __ ] life honey this is 87 lives
01:01:10
like this is horrific I'm sorry that it's not like super exciting for everyone that's when I'm like people are
01:01:18
going to people cuz I'm like people are always people in because it's like that's people Goblin is that that's
01:01:23
people go honestly people going to Goblin it's really people peopling unfortunately I would love to say it's
01:01:28
Goblin but I think Goblin is more fun I think people peopling is where we are right now where it's like this isn't fun
01:01:35
to read anymore make it fun for me make this tragedy fun and it's like okay also
01:01:42
what that's the thing like 87 people lost their lives in a horrific fire what exactly are you looking for need more
01:01:47
drama what else do you need there they lost their lives because a jilted lover came and lit the club on fire because
01:01:54
this girlfriend his ex-girlfriend wouldn't take take them back do you need more what else would you like an alien
01:02:00
abduction on top of it like I don't know what else makes this more horrific and for the judge to do that in front of the
01:02:05
family like that's how about you look at the family and say I'm so sorry that you're going through this right now and
01:02:09
that your loved ones were taken by this [ __ ] over here yeah and that people are calling this boring what now finally
01:02:17
after a month-long trial and four days of deliberation the jury delivered a verdict finding Julio Gonzalez guilty on
01:02:24
all counts um in including 174 counts of murder wow 87 counts of arson felony murder and 87 counts of Murder By
01:02:33
depraved indifference to human life per victim how did he get 174 counts of murder you um with the 87 counts of
01:02:39
arson felony murder and then 87 counts oh see dep uh depraved indifference to human life per victim gotcha gotcha
01:02:46
gotcha uh given the sheer enormity of the case and the number of victims involved the verdict took more than 5
01:02:51
minutes to read in its entirety wow cuz they had to go like charge by charge now
01:02:57
when the jury Foreman finally finished reading the verdict many of the 20 families of the victims in that were
01:03:03
present broke down in sobs of course also there for the verdict was Ruben Valderas the DJ who'd escaped the fire
01:03:10
he had extensive Burns he required many surgeries um he was there with his social worker and he said outside of the
01:03:18
courtroom he said it's a good thing um he said adjust thing and uh like he I mean he went through so much after this
01:03:27
so he was he was pleased with the verdict but nothing is going to give him back quity life and the jury was equally
01:03:35
relieved that the case had finally come to an end although they declined to hold
01:03:39
a press conference one or two took questions from reporters to say that while they were moved by the testimony
01:03:44
and heartbroken by the loss of life the verdict was based solely on the evidence
01:03:49
presented against Gonzalez yeah now in his statement to the Press prosecutor Eric Warner said while the prosecutor's
01:03:55
off off was obviously satisfied with this outcome he said there's no happiness in this the case was just has
01:04:01
just drained everyone involved in it I could definitely see that which is I think a good statement like that there's
01:04:06
no happiness in this like we're satisfied that Justice was served but this isn't happen doesn't bring anybody
01:04:11
back now a month later on September 19th Julio Gonzalez returned to the packed courtroom for sentencing and before
01:04:17
passing sentence on Julio judge Burton Roberts addressed The Spectators and press saying that while the defendant
01:04:23
was ultimately the one who caused the fire there were many things that led to the death of 87 people most having to do
01:04:29
with building and fire code violations he said there are many to be blamed not just Julio
01:04:35
Gonzalez which I was like I see where you're coming from of course that you're saying there are many people to blame
01:04:41
here but let's blame Julio yeah for the ultimate loss of life here that's Julio and especially since the the the trial
01:04:49
here is for Julio that's the thing I understand I I understand where he's coming from and he's not wrong that
01:04:55
there are many things to blame I don't think this was the time or the place to talk about those other things not yeah
01:05:00
this was not the venue to do the Mur trial I understand the Press talking about the different things and stuff
01:05:05
like the the code violations and all that that honestly the city should have dealt with yeah but this this is about
01:05:12
something much like more like intimate partner violence this is literally something much more
01:05:19
like consolidated yeah like you that's the thing and something that a lot of people are dealing with like a lot of
01:05:26
people are not dealing with fire and code violations right now but a lot of people are living with someone who could
01:05:32
potentially do this to them exactly but I don't think I don't think that was anybody's focus in 1990 um so when he
01:05:39
had finished his statement judge Roberts sentence Julio Gonzalez to 25 years to life impr prison prison the maximum
01:05:46
allowed under New York law wow that's definitely not enough in my opinion well Julio Gonzalez served his sentence at
01:05:52
Clinton Correctional Facility in damura New York in 20 2015 he became eligible for parole but his petition was
01:05:59
unanimously Deni denied by the parole board good who stated that he would quote not live at Liberty without again
01:06:05
VI violating the law and concluded that releasing him would be quote incompatible with the welfare of society
01:06:11
correct a year later on September 13th 2016 Julio Gonzalez died from a heart attack at age 61 wow so shortly after
01:06:20
the fire at Happyland the building's owner Alex Del Lorenzo iiii turned himself into police on a warrant for the
01:06:26
many building code and safety violations a judge released D Lorenzo on his own recognizance that's what we talked about
01:06:33
before with an order to appear at a later date in May 1992 dorenzo and Jay Weiss the building's landlord agreed to
01:06:40
a plea deal with prosecutors in which they pleaded guilty for violations and in exchange they just had to perform 50
01:06:47
hours of community service and pay a fine of $150,000 which went towards a community
01:06:52
center for Hondurans living in the Bronx that's nice that that money went towards
01:06:57
that I'm glad that happened a lawyer for De Lorenzo told reporters we didn't think jail was the appropriate sentence
01:07:03
I disagree and we were able to resolve it without that sentence I'm like that's nice for you yeah I wonder how the
01:07:09
family felt about that in the months after the fire victim's families actually filed a $5 billion civil suit
01:07:15
against Del Lorenzo Weiss the city of New York and several of the companies whose products produce toxic fumes
01:07:21
during the fire rightfully so the suit took several years to resolve but in Ju July 1995 a settlement was reached
01:07:27
totaling 15.8 million with each family receiving an average of $163,000 I think that's [ __ ] that's
01:07:38
[ __ ] yeah that's [ __ ] that's that's [ __ ] I don't know you can't put a price on anybody's
01:07:45
loved one but if but if you're going to that's [ __ ] it's not it's not in the thousands in my opinion no that's
01:07:53
[ __ ] and when asked why they were willing to sell SLE for a significantly lower number than the initial suit had
01:07:58
had been lawyers for the family said while the settlement seemed small compared with other high profile
01:08:03
wrongful death Awards the Happy Land case was complicated by questions of Insurance liability the bankruptcy of
01:08:10
the building's wealthy owner and by the death of the club's operator in the fire now although they were relieved
01:08:17
that the suit had been resolved many families were disappointed with this outcome I would say I understand it's
01:08:23
not enough money for what we've lost said Leticia ginita whose two sons died in the fire two sons yeah that's her
01:08:31
whole life that's you like not enough money for what you've lost and truly many of the victim's families found
01:08:38
themselves in dire situations after the fire they had been forced to make hard emotional and financial decisions
01:08:43
because they lost loved ones that were sometimes the person that was generating the income delisia pinetta who lost her
01:08:50
husband in the fire said I've been doing my best but it's been a very difficult time and and to think that all these
01:08:56
people have lost their loved ones and then some of them were left completely alone to generate an income and keep a
01:09:01
roof over their head while they're grieving not just like a but a horrific Mur the most horrific
01:09:09
murder you could ever one of the most horrific murders you could ever imagine yeah grieving that while trying to
01:09:14
maintain trying to figure out how to pay for things how to pay their bills how to
01:09:18
send their kids to school how to do all of that how do you even get up in the morning never mind do all of those
01:09:22
things yeah many like petta had hoped the settlement while incapable of restoring obviously what they had lost
01:09:29
could at least help them recover the financial losses suffered due to the fire but after settling for a much lower
01:09:35
amount and paying lawyers fees they were left with considerably less than they expected and that's what people don't
01:09:41
realize with like settlement amounts so much of that goes to a lawyer Panetta asked reporters outside Court how can I
01:09:48
bring up my children and send them to college on what they're giving us this is an insult to the people who died in
01:09:53
that building absolutely is every year since the fire community members have held a vigil at the site of the fire
01:09:59
where a small Stone was placed listing the names of those lost in the fire like many events though commemorating the
01:10:05
loss of life and tragedy the vigil gets smaller every year right um the event starts fading you know those directly
01:10:12
affected move away or pass on still there are those in the community like Janette banra Simone I hope I said your
01:10:19
name correctly uh who while not directly connected to the fire work hard to keep
01:10:24
the memory of the victim alive in the community which is pretty badass she told a reporter in 2020 they say out of
01:10:30
sight out of mind but it's not out of sight it's very visible to the community the trauma is real I think the Latino
01:10:36
and African-American Community has dealt with trauma in different ways without getting the support that they need yeah
01:10:42
absolutely and that is the story of the Happyland Social Club arson wow that is a tragic tragic case and there's a lot
01:10:51
of lot of failings a lot of failures there and a lot of moments with the way that it was dealt
01:10:57
with it's so sad it's so those thinking of people just and like we've seen this a lot in different ways like you know
01:11:05
recently with like mass shootings and other things that are happening whenever I think of people just doing something
01:11:12
so innocuous like going to school yep going to a social club one night just a blowoff steam one that you go to all the
01:11:19
time just going to hang out with your friends your [ __ ] life going to a grocery store like all this stuff it's
01:11:24
like going to a parade Y and they're just and that's it like that's it like it's so it's everyone in your family is
01:11:33
just left to pick up the pieces yeah like the like the Pulse Nightclub that one Always Rings in my head it's like
01:11:40
this thinking about that and like hearing the stories of the cell phones ringing afterwards and stuff it's like
01:11:45
you think of those things those people just went to dance and how many times have we done the same thing you just go
01:11:51
out to have a night to D just I can't rep my brain doesn't it like it [ __ ] my brain up every time I think about it
01:11:58
because I can't think of that being you you have no idea that that's your last yeah you just thing you're doing you go
01:12:05
out you're so happy you're getting ready with your friends and I I can't imagine
01:12:08
being a parent right now no and like like not only can you not send your kid to school we don't need to get into all
01:12:13
of that but like you can't send your kid to school but then they grow up scared of everything they can't go anywhere
01:12:18
like no it's so it's so much added responsibility that shouldn't be happening like everywhere you go you
01:12:25
have to worry am I doing was this a correct decision going out as a family here like are we safe are we okay yeah
01:12:32
and for that to be in the back of your mind as much as now it has to be is just yeah and this unreal and this is the
01:12:38
same kind of thing those people had no [ __ ] clue that there was some [ __ ] that couldn't handle rejection that was
01:12:45
going to make it there last night and no idea like that's the biggest thing right
01:12:50
there what you just said and no idea that these buildings weren't up to so unsafe that's and that is the other
01:12:56
layer to it is that these these people running these buildings had no like you as a no thought of PE of Life of human
01:13:03
life they weren't thinking of that and you as a patron should be able to go out and like you said blow off steam and and
01:13:09
know that you are safe know that you're safe and know that there are exits and everything's up to code and that
01:13:14
measures put together so that you can get out have thought about you as a human being and that you should be safe
01:13:22
that's what that you should be able to think that but when I say say people are going to people unfortunately sometimes
01:13:27
people are going to people that's the theme of they think the bottom line and they don't think about human life
01:13:33
humanity is [ __ ] so people don't people yeah I feel like we need a pallet cleanser after that we do um because my
01:13:40
next case is also very very brutal very very senseless and so we're going to need one really horrific so we'll
01:13:46
definitely need one um so we'll figure that out hopefully in between these cases I think is a good idea to do um
01:13:52
and in the meantime we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that you don't care
01:13:59
about your fellow person go do something nice for someone today people in the good way and don't think about yourself
01:14:03
when you're doing it just go do it for someone else yeah love [Music] you