BRONX COMMUNITY BOARD #6 AND ASSEMBLYMAN LUIS SEPULVEDA TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE ANNOUNCING THE COMMEMORATION OF THE 24TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HAPPY LAND SOCIAL CLUB FIRE, THE LARGEST MASS MURDER IN NEW YORK CITY, SECOND ONLY TO
THE 9/11 TERRORIST ATTACK.
Date: Friday, March 21, 2014
Place: Happy Land Social Club memorial
East Tremont Avenue and Southern Boulevard
Bronx, New York
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Expected to attend: Assemblyman Luis Sepulveda; other elected officials, Bronx Community Board #6 and other Bronx community boards; family and friends of the fire victims.
At 12:00 p.m. on Friday, March 21, 2014 the members and staff of Bronx Community Board #6 will hold a press conference to announce plans to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the Happy Land Social Club Fire where 87 men
and women perished on March 25, 1990. The conference will be held at the site of the Happy Land Memorial which is located at East Tremont Avenue and Southern Boulevard.
The community board, working alongside its current elected officials, such as Assemblyman Luis Sepulveda, continues to fight to ensure that its nightspots are up to code safe and to shutter bars that are unsafe, serve liquor to minors and disrupt the general peace of the community.
Assemblyman Sepulveda has been at the forefront of the community board’s battle against intrusive liquor establishment in the West Farms area and arranged for the community board to meet face-to-face with representatives of the State Liquor Authority and plead its case that the authority should deny liquor licenses to establishments that are detrimental to the community.
“Happy Land has left community board #6 with both a legacy and an obligation. An obligation to ensure that it will not happen again and that it will not be forgotten,” said Ms. Galarza. “Consequently, each year, the community board, in conjunction with St. Thomas Aquinas Church, family members, friends of the fire victims, and our local elected officials commemorate this sad occasion so that it will never be forgotten or repeated.”
Bronx Community Board #6 recognizes that there were many factors that led up to the tragedy that was the Happy Land Fire; not the least of which was the evil that prompted one man to purchase a dollar’s worth of gasoline and use it to set a fire that claimed the lives of 87 innocent victims. However, the community board also recognized that there were other factors that played a role in contributing to this tragedy. These contributing elements included the many buildings, fire and safety code violations that were ignored by the club’s owners and operators, and, just as importantly, were not enforced by any state or city agency.
To its credit, the city, shortly after the Happy Land Fire, formed the Social Club Task Force (now known as the Multi-Agency Response to Community Hotspots or MARCH Operation) to inspect nightspots for possible hazardous violations. In 1995 the City also erected the Happy Land Social Club monument in memory of the fire victims directly across the street from the site of the former social club through funding provided by then Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and former City Councilman Jose Rivera. The area in front of the monument was also subsequently renamed Ochenta y Siete Boulevard in the victims’ memory.
Additional information about either the March 21th press conference or the March 25th memorial mass and procession may be obtained by contacting the community board’s district office at (718) 579-6990.
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