N.Y. / REGION

East Village Explosion Might Have Followed Attempt to Hide Gas Siphoning

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The explosion on Thursday killed two men and destroyed three buildings. Investigators believe that, possibly for more than a year, gas had been redirected.Jake Naughton for The New York Times
Law enforcement officials are investigating whether the explosion that destroyed three buildings and killed two men in the East Village last week resulted from an attempt to hide the unauthorized siphoning of natural gas for tenants in one of the buildings.
Their working theory is that one or more gas lines were surreptitiously tapped over several months; then the siphoning apparatus was dismantled or hidden on Thursday before Consolidated Edison conducted an inspection. As soon as the utility inspectors left, an attempt to resume the diversion of gas went awry, setting off the explosion, according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of this working theory.
That version of events is far from proven and is still being pieced together through interviews with utility workers and witnesses, including the owner and the manager of Sushi Park, a restaurant that occupied the ground floor of the building where the explosion took place, 121 Second Avenue, near East Seventh Street. The police interviewed the restaurant owner, Hyeonil Kim, over the weekend and heard his ideas about how gas may have been redirected to the appliances of tenants in the apartments above his restaurant.

What the Tenant Told the Police About the Gas Pipes

The manager of Sushi Park restaurant drew this diagram of the basement of 121 Second Avenue for police, showing a new pipe that may have been used to siphon gas from a neighboring building.
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The existing gas meter for 121, connected to a main from the street. Seven months ago, Consolidated Edison detected leaks in multiple hoses that fed upstairs apartments, and shut the gas down. It was turned back on a few days later after the multiple connections were removed.
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Pipe near the ceiling ran from landlord space (shaded) to the front, then up into the building (not horizontally as shown.)
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Door that opens in the direction of the building at 119 Second Avenue, owned by the same landlord.
SECOND AVENUE
Source: Hyeonil Kim
By The New York Times
Con Edison workers discovered in early August that a gas line for Sushi Park had been tapped to supply fuel to the tenants in that building. That siphoning, which Con Edison inspectors said had created a “hazardous situation,” was intended as a stopgap until the utility approved the use of a bigger line that could serve the whole five-story building, law enforcement sources said.
But the investigators now believe that, possibly for more than a year, gas had been redirected from pipes coming into two of the buildings that were destroyed. They are looking into the possibility that the siphoning apparatus had been dismantled or somehow hidden from Con Edison’s inspectors on Thursday afternoon, then restored after they left.
New York City officials said that Con Edison’s inspectors left 121 Second Avenue around 2:45 p.m., after finding fault with plumbing work in the basement but no signs of leaking gas or other safety concerns. They deemed the building unprepared to receive gas through the bigger pipe, so they left the head of that pipe locked.
Half an hour later, an explosion blew the building apart, killing two men who had been inside Sushi Park and starting a fire that spread to three neighboring buildings.
As part of their theory, investigators are focusing on the possibility that the building’s landlord, Maria Hrynenko, or others might have instructed residents on how to respond to questions from Con Edison workers about the gas service.
“That is something that we are looking into,” said one senior law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an investigation in progress.
Mr. Kim, the owner of Sushi Park, said on Tuesday that he and the restaurant’s manager had met over the weekend with the police, who pressed them for details of the configuration of gas pipes in the basement. Mr. Kim said he told the police that the manager had noticed a black pipe that ran along the ceiling of the basement, then up toward the apartments above.
Mr. Kim even sketched the location of the pipe on a floor plan of the basement for the police, he said, during an interview over coffee next door to a deli he operates on the Upper East Side. The overhead pipe clearly was not connected to the gas pipe that served his restaurant, which was the only pipe through which Con Edison was sending gas to 121 Second Avenue.
He said the manager could not tell where the pipe began because it extended out of a section of the basement that only the landlord had access to. But he said he assumed that it connected to the gas pipe serving the building next door, which was also owned by a company controlled by Ms. Hrynenko.
Otherwise, Mr. Kim wondered aloud, where did the tenants who had moved in upstairs obtain the gas that fueled their water heaters and stoves?
During the interview, Mr. Kim gave a more detailed account of what happened inside his restaurant on Thursday afternoon. He said the manager had seen a general contractor, Dilber Kukic, and some other men head downstairs to the basement from the back of Sushi Park.
A lawyer representing Mr. Kukic, Mark Bederow, said: “It is not in dispute that Mr. Kukic was present at an inspection shortly before the explosion. I urge people not to misinterpret facts and make assumptions about what led to this tragedy.”
While working in his office, the manager later noticed the distinct rotten-egg odor of gas and called Ms. Hrynenko. He did not call 911 or Con Edison, Mr. Kim said, because he thought the landlord had men working down below who could address the problem.
Ms. Hrynenko assured the manager that the matter would be resolved, Mr. Kim said. But when the gas odor persisted, the manager called Ms. Hrynenko again and she told him that she would send her son Michael to check it out, Mr. Kim said.
Still, the manager was worried enough about the potential buildup of gas that he walked to the front of the restaurant and opened the door. Just as he did, Mr. Kim said, the blast occurred, flinging the manager out into the street. The manager was injured but was treated at a hospital and released, said Mr. Kim, who was not at the restaurant at the time.
At Con Edison’s headquarters near Union Square, company officials said the informed speculation about what led to the explosion tracked closely with the theory that law enforcement investigators are pursuing: that two different pipes were siphoned to supply tenants above. One difference from that theory was Mr. Kim’s suspicion that the basement pipe he described was one of the vehicles for the siphoned gas. A Con Ed spokesman, Philip O’Brien, said he could provide no information about the existence of that pipe.
“Any such questions would have to be directed toward the city agencies and law enforcement conducting the investigation,” Mr. O’Brien said.
Jiha Ham contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on April 1, 2015, on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: East Village Blast Might Have Followed Attempt to Hide Gas Siphoning. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe