Man Sues Landlord After Losing Home In Fatal Harlem Fire: Report

HARLEM, NY — A Harlem man is taking his former landlord and actor Edward Norton's production company to court after he lost his home and all of his possessions when a deadly fire broke out on a movie set in 2018.

Curu Necos-Bloice, a photographer, filed a civil lawsuit claiming that he's lived in emergency housing since the March 2018 fire forced him out of the rent-stabilized apartment he had been living in since 1998, the New York Post first reported. Necos-Bloice blames landlord Vincent Sollazzo and the company Class 5 films, which was using the St. Nicholas Avenue residential building as a film set for the upcoming "Motherless Brooklyn" film starring Norton and Bruce Willis.

The former tenant claims that he was home the night of the fire and called Sollazzo when power was cut to his apartment, but the landlord and film company didn't let residents know about the blaze when it first broke out.

"When representatives of Defendant Class 5 became aware of the fire, they did not warn the tenants in the building; in fact, they misled the tenants into believing there was no fire,” the suit says," the lawsuit obtained by the New York Post reads.

Other tenants of the St. Nicholas Avenue building have previously sued Sollazzo and Class 5 films, according to the report.

The five-alarm fire completely destroyed the building on St. Nicholas Avenue near West 149th Street when it broke out on the night of March 23, 2018. Firefighter Michael Davidson of Long Island was killed after being separated from other firefighters in the building's basement. He was a 15-year FDNY veteran of Engine Company 69 in Manhattan and had been cited for bravery and life-saving actions four times in his career, Nigro said.

An FDNY fire marshal assigned to investigate the cause of the fire recently claimed department superiors of covering up the true cause of the blaze in order to protect the Hollywood stars filming in the building.