The explosive, deadly fire that broke out in a Harlem apartment building early last year followed pointed warnings to city government agencies about fire dangers related to a proliferation of e-bikes stored there — yet no investigation.
Two weeks earlier, the city’s 311 system had received two alerts about bikes chained to a fence outside the building that a caller said could impede the FDNY in the event of a fire, “resulting in a loss of life and property,” records show. Residents had repeatedly complained to the landlord, to no avail, about e-bike batteries being charged inside the building.
But the 311 system treated the complaints as minor matters. One came in via the 311 website, selecting the menu item for a bike rack request that was automatically channeled to the city Department of Transportation. The second came in as a phone call the dispatcher steered to the NYPD, reporting a blocked sidewalk outside 2 St. Nicholas Place.
The DOT did not respond to the scene. Meanwhile, the 30th Precinct cops sent to check it out determined “the bikes were attached to private property and police action was unwarranted.” They closed the case in less than an hour.
The Fire Department was not involved, and in the 15 days between the 311 complaints and the Feb. 23 fire, no city agency investigated where all the batteries for the devices chained outside were being charged.
Lithium-ion battery fires have plagued the city as the number of micro-mobility devices proliferated after the pandemic, with 936 battery fires resulting in 507 injuries and 33 deaths since 2019. Among the dead was Fazil Khan, a young journalist who lived at 2 Hamilton Place.
Nearly two ago, in the wake of a deadly Chinatown fire, Mayor Eric Adams and his former fire commissioner urged New Yorkers to use the 311 system to report dangerous lithium-ion battery charging — promising the FDNY would then be notified and required to respond to the complaint within 12 hours. Since then, the FDNY says it has received and responded to more than a thousand such calls.
Yet it remains impossible to file a complaint using the system’s website or app, while some phone callers alarmed about evidence of dangerous battery charging describe confusion and frustration when they attempt to phone in a report.
In August the law firm of Elefterakis, Elefterakis & Panek sued the building’s owner, Hudson Valley King LLC, and management company Zelmen Management on behalf of Khan’s family, charging that they failed “to safeguard the premises against the well-known hazards of lithium-ion batteries” and had no policy “regarding e-bikes and lithium-ion batteries” at the building.
In court papers, Patrick Kenny, the lawyer for the building owner and management company, denied all the allegations set forth in the Khan family civil complaint.
The obstacles to action at 2 St. Nicholas Place started with the less-than-obvious way the 311 system fields calls about unsafe e-bike battery charging inside buildings.
A spokesperson for the Department of Technology and Information, the agency that manages 311, said the app is curated to present daily status updates, such as alternate side parking, and high-volume service requests within the limited space available on app.
Frequently used complaint categories include rats, noise, homeless encampments, trash pickup, potholes and dirty sidewalks. There is no category for suspected unsafe battery charging.
The 311 website homepage lists 16 “most popular” inquiries — but suspected e-bike battery charging is not a menu option anywhere on the site.
A visitor would have to search “batteries” to be directed to a page that describes safe methods for charging and advises visitors who are concerned about possible unsafe conditions to call 311.
Operators are instructed to route 311 calls about unsafe battery charging to FDNY dispatchers, who in turn direct them to the department’s lithium-ion battery safety unit.
Yet that’s not always what happens. One New Yorker who spoke to THE CITY on the condition of anonymity described his frustrating attempt to report potentially dangerous e-bike battery charging he believed was taking place across the street from his home.
One Friday he noticed several individuals bringing batteries in and out of a sushi restaurant on the first floor of an apartment building. He called 311 and found himself navigating a series of phone prompts, none of which involved suspected unsafe e-bike battery charging.
He said he called several times, stating “lithium-ion battery” to the voice prompt, and he was eventually sent to someone who asked if he was seeking a building permit. Another operator said they’d send someone out within 12 hours but before he could give them the information, they hung up on him. A third operator sent him to 911, who asked “What’s the emergency?”
“I said it’s not an emergency. I’m just trying to make a report about a potentially dangerous condition. He said we’ll send someone out. I left my number. I didn’t get a call back.”
Exasperated with his experience, he says his worries about the potential for disaster have not dissipated.
With “311 you can report all kinds of things and check the status. It’s odd” there’s no battery safety prompt, he said. “This e-bike thing, it scares me because I have a young child and if a fire breaks out after a call like this, I would really be frustrated if it was because nothing was done about this.”
Dead-End Calls
The 311 inquiries about e-bikes chained to the fence outside 2 St. Nicholas Place came into the system on Feb. 8.
One came through the 311 website page on bike racks, with the complainant stating that the address “has eight e-bikes and two mopeds under tarp chained to the fencing on the sidewalk everyday.”
“If fire hoses were being utilized, these chained obstacles could easily impede their movement resulting in loss of life and property,” the complaint states, then suggests eliminating this potentially dangerous scenario by installing a bike rack across the street in a park.
On that same day someone called 311 to complain about the e-bikes on the fence, and in this case the complaint was routed to the NYPD as “illegal parking” and “blocked sidewalk.”
The afternoon of Feb. 23, fire erupted in Apartment 33 where tenants were charging multiple e-bike batteries. The conflagration spread thick black smoke to all the upper floors almost instantly. Khan, who worked for the Hechninger Report and had contributed to THE CITY, lived one floor above that apartment and died of smoke inhalation and thermal exposure.
Hundreds of 311 calls about unsafe battery charging have successfully been routed to the FDNY. Since the mayor’s announcement, records show 311 has fielded 1,126 calls related to potentially dangerous charging. Still, there’s no way to measure the success of the mayor’s order mandating an FDNY response within 12 hours because the Fire Department does not track the response times for that type of call.
Department officials said depending on the circumstances — the unit could be out on another call, a store could be closed — the department strives to respond by the deadline. And if the lithium-ion battery safety unit finds more serious conditions that indicate an imminent threat to safety, the bureau of fire prevention could then respond and issue citations or even order a location vacated.
The Adams administration, meanwhile, is seeking other means to dissuade the charging of e-bike batteries inside properties where people live. Last year DOT launched a pilot program to reduce battery charging inside apartments by setting up charging docks on sidewalks. Last week, DOT announced it is expanding the pilot with a new protocol for building owners and tenants citywide to obtain approval to set up sidewalk charging stations outside their buildings.
Federal funding for a concurrent effort to set up 173 charging stations outside 53 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments was announced in June, but the process has been slow to get the stations up and running. Contracts for a pilot program with Con Ed at four developments are expected to take place this spring.
