‘I have nothing of my parents.’ Survivors reflect after Surfside tower is demolished.
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Steve Rosenthal, 72, a survivor of the partial building collapse in Surfside, does not have a single photograph of either of his late parents left in his possession after his home of 20 years was demolished Sunday to make way for further search-and-rescue efforts.
By the time that his apartment, Unit 705 in the Champlain Towers South, was destroyed 11 days after the initial partial collapse, Rosenthal said he knew “it needed to come down” to aid rescue workers and ensure their safety. But actually witnessing the implosion still marked a moment of profound sadness.
“For a moment, we all thought — or at least I thought — maybe they could shore up the part that was still standing, so we could go in and get some of our possessions,” said Rosenthal, who was the second survivor to file a lawsuit against the condo association. “But that quickly faded. I knew it wasn’t going to happen.”
With the demolition of the building complete — and the confirmed death toll of the collapse climbing each day, now at 36 — survivors of the collapse are looking back at the priceless objects that once defined their homes, mourning beloved neighbors who are still missing in the rubble and beginning to look toward what may await them in an uncertain future.
When rescuers pulled him from his balcony in the early morning hours of June 24, Rosenthal’s escape felt to him like divine intervention. “I honestly believe it was my angels — my parents in heaven — said to God, it ain’t his time yet,” he said. If Rosenthal had been living one unit over, he previously explained, he likely would not have made it.
“For the first seven, eight days, I was in shock, I was in tears. 20 years. I knew all of these people. They’re neighbors, but a lot of them are friends, who I worked out at the gym with, hung out with by the pool, took walks with on the beach,” he told the Herald. “It’s surreal on a level times 1,000. That’s how insane it is. I still can’t comprehend or wrap my head around it, I just can’t.”
The possessions Rosenthal left behind included a marble nightlight statue that had once belonged to his mother and had been a fixture of his family’s homes since he was 13. Since the ‘80s, when his father died, Rosenthal had taken care of the piece.
“I have no pictures, I have nothing of my parents. Zero. Nothing,” Rosenthal said. He lived alone in the apartment and had never digitized his photo albums.
Esther Gorfinkel, 88, another survivor who was carried out by two neighbors running from the building, told Channel 10 in a tearful interview of the items she will never see again.
“My mother’s wedding pictures, my children’s wedding pictures, pictures from my husband I brought from Europe after the war,” said Gorfinkel, who lived in Unit 509. “Everything is in there.”
Moshe Candiotti, 67, told NBC News that more than furniture or any other valuables left behind in his apartment, he regrets leaving behind an oil portrait of his mother he had painted decades ago. Candiotti told the Herald that while he doubts he will recover that painting, he hopes that objects are treated with “concern.”
“When they recover something,” he said he hopes that responders will “respect what they recover and keep it in a good shape.”
“I hope people are human being and consider us as a survivor, but I want to survive with my dignity. I survived, and I don’t have nothing,” Candiotti said. At this point, part of retaining that human dignity for Candiotti means regaining the financial security he felt he had at the condo.
“I want at least to recover my money,” he said. “I only moved in a year and four months ago.”
After an initial week of shock and psychological trauma, Rosenthal said he is beginning to slowly ponder his next moves from the Marriott Residence Inn, where the American Red Cross has put him up in the meantime. But as of yet, he has no answers.
“I had a beautiful two-bedroom, two-baths, overlooking the tennis courts, downtown Miami, Biscayne Bay. I had a steam room, I had a gym, I had a walking trail, I had a bicycle trail, I had the ocean. It was paradise, it doesn’t get better. I was retiring there,” Rosenthal said. “In an instant, it’s all gone.
“That’s why I’m sleeping two, three hours a night,” he said, adding that all his lost clothes and furniture are not what’s occupying his mind. “It’s the roof over my head.”
