East Village blast victims file $17M lawsuit against city, others

Thirty-six East Village residents have filed a $17 million lawsuit against Con Edison and the city for negligence that lead to the East Village gas explosion last year.

“Sopranos” actress Drea de Matteo, who lost her home when a gas explosion leveled three buildings, is among the locals involved in the lawsuit, according to the New York Daily News.

The city, Con Edison, contractor Neighborhood Construction Corp. and the owners of the restaurant Sushi Park failed “to observe significant and dangerous ‘red flags’ … failing to take any steps to protect the public and their property,” according to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The lawsuit also alleges that the city and the others also failed to “properly test the gas lines” and relied “upon an illogical and antiquated system of enforcement, inspections and unreliable self-certification.”

“For 22 years that was my home, my children’s home,” de Matteo told the Daily News. “We lost every memory, photograph, hard drive. We lost everything from my childhood through my adulthood. And my kids still don’t understand they can never go back there.” [NYDN] –Christopher Cameron