The families of the 87 victims of the Happy Land Social Club fire hope community spirit will support them as they wait for a billion-dollar lawsuit to wind through the court system.
"If we are together, we will be strong," said Franco Mena, a 30-year-old who lost his brother in the fire. "We want justice. We want the government to tell the courts to give it to us."
Mena was one of the speakers at a memorial Mass March 25 at St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church on the fifth anniversary of the fire -- one of the worst mass slayings in the United States and the fourth-worst structural fire in city history.
Julio Gonzalez, a Cuban immigrant serving 25 years to life in Clinton Correctional Facility at Dannemora, set the fire in the doorway of the club at 1959 Southern Blvd. City agencies had ordered the club closed because of a lack of proper exits and other fire code violations.
Within five minutes, people dancing on the second floor of the small building died of smoke inhalation.
Most of the victims were among the estimated 7,000 recent immigrants from Honduras living in the borough. They were young and the majority were Garifuna -- a people descended from African slaves and Carib Indians.
It is estimated that some 60,000 Garifuna from the Caribbean coast of Central America live in the Bronx and northern Manhattan.
On the Saturday before the anniversary, 12 families organized a vigil at the burned-out building on Southern Boulevard, now named Ochenta y Siete Boulevard, Spanish for the number 87. Flowers, candles and hand-lettered placards covered the street as almost a hundred people sang hymns, said the rosary and remembered lost loved ones.
"We believe that next year we'll be even closer as a people and as individuals," said Francisco Rivas, a Garifuna at the vigil. "Today, we were not thinking about people's color; we were thinking of a cause."
The cause, according to the signs taped to the club walls and according to many of the victims, is a court case amounting to almost $5 billion and involving more than 30 lawyers and suits against the club owner, its lessor and the city. Suits have also been launched against the manufacturers of products that may have given off toxic fumes in the fire.
The anniversary was observed with tears and quiet moments in front of the club, and with speeches, prayer and music at the Mass at the church less than two blocks away.
On the street in front the club, a granite memorial is being built. It will be inscribed with the names of the 87 victims and is expected to be completed in early May.