Katherine Ragazzino, a Queens resident, is a disabled U.S. veteran. After fighting overseas for her country, she is now battling a more personal issue at home, involving a broken-down apartment and a building company that she says is not doing much to help with repairs.
Fire struck the eighth floor of a Dayton Towers building on Shore Front Parkway in Rockaway Park, where Ragazzino lives, on Jan. 3, 2022. While her co-op apartment was not hit by the flames, it sustained considerable smoke and water damage, much of which is still prevalent today. (Per a Rockaway Wave article, no people, although a dog, were killed in the fire.)
Exposed wiring is still a problem, according to Ragazzino. Her circuit box is also defective. She even had to fight with management to get new kitchen appliances that were completely destroyed.
The veteran, who once faced homelessness in California, is disabled due to a traumatic brain injury she suffered during her 2004 tour in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. After being accepted into the city’s Mitchell-Lama affordable housing program in 2016, the combat vet never thought she would have to face housing issues again — until the fire struck.
“I made this into my home,” Ragazzino said of her apartment and when she arrived and established herself in NYC in 2012. “I fell in love with NYC.”
Ragazzino is now suing both Dayton Towers Corp, and Metro Management Development, Inc. According to the lawsuit Ragazzino filed on May 21, 2024, as well as her own statements, current damage in and near her eighth-floor apartment includes exposed wiring, a soot-covered balcony, hallway ceiling damage and other ongoing issues requiring repair.
“Being disabled, I’m not able to clean the balcony,” Ragazzino said. “I can’t enjoy the balcony. And all my furniture of course was thrown out from the fire.”
At one point, the veteran explained, she tripped and fell over uneven flooring which, she says, the management company left while attempting to do repairs.
According to the lawsuit, the Fire or Casualty clause in Ragazzino’s lease reads, “…if the apartment or building shall be partially damaged by fire, the damages shall be repaired by and at the expense of the company as soon as it can be reasonably be done under the circumstances.”
amNewYork Metro reached out several times to both Dayton Towers Corp. and Metro Management, but has yet to hear back from them.
Some repairs were done ‘haphazardly’
Ragazzino, a co-op shareholder and proprietary lessee of the apartment, took on a bulk of the cleanup herself. She had to move out for over a year following the fire, waiting for repairs to be done while she paid for some of the work herself, including a $50 faucet.
In the meantime, she is putting her building maintenance fees — $1,175 a month — into an escrow account.
Although the building’s management company made some repairs throughout the two-year ordeal, much of it was done “haphazardly,” she said. And some of those repairs were done after Ragazzino took Dayton Towers to court for the first time last year.
Dominique Myers of Sharova Law Firm is Ragazzino’s lawyer. She said other building residents have similar complaints, and none should “have to suffer” from the ongoing situation.
“She and the other residents in this building should not have to suffer from deplorable conditions, especially when they are seeking repairs that they are entitled to by law,” Myers said.
Her client, Myers said, has also been harassed by Metro Management during the ongoing “fiasco” — leaving Ragazzino feeling belittled and treated like a burden for making “reasonable” repair requests as well as accommodation requests for her disability.
“Ms. Ragazzino should not have to withstand berating and harassing conduct by the management company and bear the burden of their continued negligence,” Myers said.
Ragazzino said she wants a formal investigation done by the city, back charges removed and other compensation.
But she also made it clear she wants help for her neighbors in a similar situation.
“There are several others who still need assistance,” she said. “And I hope to be a voice for them.”
