Family Memorial for Fire Victims

My name is Janet Ayala and I am a 57-year-old mother of five grown children and ten grandchildren including a grandson who passed away from chronic kidney disease. I have lived in Central Florida for twenty-three years now with my husband, Jose, of thirty-three years. I am grateful that life has bestowed me with the safety and presence of all of my children. They are all here with me in Florida and are largely responsible for my salvation. I know firsthand what it is to lose a family. To grieve endlessly for my family lost to violence.

On April 31st, 1982 I survived the Pinter Hotel arson fire in Hoboken, New Jersey. On this day my life changed forever as I watched the destruction of what change meant to the city. It meant that I needed to go for already well-off people to be in my place. I lost my entire family in the fire that day including my mother, who had already survived two previous fires, and my stepfather, brother, and nephew. I say that I lost my entire family because the ones that survived were unable to cope with the death of our mother who was the trunk of our family. In this devastating moment we essentially lost 3 generations of our lineage. In total 13 people died that day. All families who were loved like my own. The news media deemed it HELL ON 14TH STREET, a fitting title as the last 40 years of my life have felt like just that, an inescapable hell that only this sort of trauma can bring.

After the fire, I was left with nothing, with no aid from the city and found myself with my firstborn, who as a result incurred long-standing respiratory issues, and siblings begging for money on the street just so we could afford to bury our family. My husband at the time, who had never used hard substances before the fire, fell victim to drugs which then cost him his job and eventually his life. As well, my sister and brother found themselves lost to substance abuse as a result of losing our mother. I found myself in a women’s shelter with my girls and was at the time suffering from such trauma. There, I would often wake up in the middle of the night screaming that the building was burning and couldn’t rest until the building was checked from top to bottom. The stress was so severe that I stopped eating and I didn’t even know that I was pregnant due to extreme weight loss and malnourishment as a result of this trauma. The doctors gave me very little hope that I would be able to have the child but I kept on going and today she is healthy and I call her my miracle child.

Today, as a result of the fire, I continue to experience PTSD, anxiety, depression, and a

a long list of medical ailments that I fight against daily. At one point, when I returned to New Jersey after many years, the place had retriggered my trauma to the point where I considered suicide. It was only when I saw my children's belongings that I stopped myself as I couldn't bear the thought of abandoning them. I consider myself a survivor but know that I can't do it alone. Over these past 40 years not a day has passed that I don't think of my mother and my family that I lost asking myself how could this happen? This year I finally took the leap to bring closure to this painful history of my life by trying to seek out the final resting places of my deceased family. No one ever told me where they were buried. At great financial expense, I traveled to Puerto Rico to find their graves and was only able to find the sites of my mother and stepfather. By working with the records department and the local municipality I found them in sadly in an unmarked grave. This was a terribly painful thing to see and know that like so many other people who lost their lives to the gentrification of the city mine, like theirs, remains nameless.

I am asking for your support today in assistance with bringing closure to this painful part of my life so that I may close this chapter and move on to the next. Your support will allow me to lay my family to rest honorably and restore my family’s legacy that was lost. I will need assistance with travel expenses to find the final resting places of my brother and nephew who remain missing and to have tombstones made for them, my mother and stepfather. As well, any additional money will go towards my mothers childhood home in Naguabo, Puerto Rico, a place that has deteriorated from neglect and which she cherished and wished to someday return to. I thank you all sincerely for your consideration and support.

Warmest regards,

Janet Ayala