New York Know
A fire in a six-story apartment building on Riverside Drive in Hamilton Heights killed an 80-year-old man early on Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, and the city ordered the whole building vacated, CBS New York reports. New York City keeps public violation and complaint records for every residential building, but they sit in separate databases that return one building at a time. This page brings together what those databases hold for the building that matches the reported description.
Caution: these records do not say what caused the fire. Nothing listed below is known to be connected to it. The address used here is our match from city property records, not an official identification.
What has been reported about the fire
From CBS New York:
- The fire started just before 1:30 a.m. in a six-story building with 54 apartments on Riverside Drive between West 143rd and West 144th streets.
- It went to two alarms and drew more than 140 fire and emergency medical personnel.
- An 80-year-old man died. A 52-year-old woman was taken to a hospital in stable condition, a third person had minor injuries, and two firefighters had minor injuries.
- The Department of Buildings issued a full vacate order, and the Red Cross registered 44 people for help.
Which building the records are for
The city’s property database (PLUTO) lists two buildings on Riverside Drive on that block:
| Address | Floors | Apartments | Year built |
|---|---|---|---|
| 660 Riverside Drive | 6 | 54 | 1908 |
| 668 Riverside Drive | 6 | 64 | 1907 |
Only 660 Riverside Drive matches the reported 54 apartments, so the records below are for that address (borough-block-lot 1020907501, building identification number 1062357). No news report or agency statement we read gives the street number.
The records at a glance
| City record | Entries | Still open | Most recent entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing code violations (Housing Preservation and Development) | 38 | 3 | May 2026 |
| Complaints to the Department of Buildings | 32 | 0 | October 2020 |
| Department of Buildings violations | 25 | 0 | August 2022 |
| Violations sent to the city’s hearings office (the Environmental Control Board, now part of the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings) | 24 | 0 | June 2021 |
| Housing agency vacate orders | 0 | 0 | None |
Housing code violations
The housing agency grades violations by class: A is non-hazardous, B is hazardous and C is immediately hazardous. Of the 38 on record, 23 are class B, 11 are class A and 4 are class C. Thirty-five are closed.
The three open violations:
| Inspected | Class | What the record describes |
|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | C | A roach infestation in one apartment |
| April 2026 | A | The owner’s annual bedbug report was not filed |
| September 2014 | C | A broken washbasin in one apartment |
Five of the 38 violations concern fire safety. All five are closed:
| Year | Class | What the record describes |
|---|---|---|
| 1992 | B | An obstructed fire-escape window |
| 2010 | B | Entrance doors that did not close by themselves |
| 2014 | B | A defective smoke detector |
| 2014 | B | A defective carbon monoxide detector |
| 2015 | C | A fire-escape window with a faulty counterbalance |
Department of Buildings records
- Complaints: 32 between 1992 and 2020, all closed. The most recent was entered in October 2020.
- Violations: 25, of which 14 are marked resolved and 11 dismissed. The most recent were issued in July 2018, April 2021 and August 2022.
- Hearings-office violations: 24, all resolved: 10 about elevators, 9 about construction and 5 under local laws. The most recent, from June 2021, concerned a required exterior-wall inspection report and was dismissed. An October 2018 notice on the same subject was upheld. A January 2017 notice concerned exterior maintenance, including a rusted fire escape and deteriorating brick, and is also resolved.
What is not in the records yet
- The vacate order reported on Nov. 9 comes from the Department of Buildings. It does not appear in the housing agency’s vacate-order list, which had no entry for this building when read.
- The Fire Department has not published a cause. Fire marshals determine the cause, and their finding will not appear in any of these databases.
For residents and neighbors
- The American Red Cross registers displaced residents for emergency help, and 311 can connect residents with the city’s emergency housing services.
- Anyone can look up a building’s open violations by address on the housing agency’s HPD Online site or the Department of Buildings’ Building Information System.
Limits of this page
- The records were read on Nov. 9, 2026, the day of the fire. City databases update on their own schedules, so recent actions may be missing.
- The address is inferred from the property database, as explained above. If officials name a different building, this page will be corrected.
- Record descriptions are paraphrased, with apartment and floor details left out.
- A closed or dismissed violation means the agency’s file is closed. It is not a finding about the building’s condition on the night of the fire.
- No resident, victim or owner is named here.