Hoboken, NJ – The large fire yesterday at the five-story apartment building at 1203 Washington Street between 12th and 13th Streets, killed one person and injured his roommate.
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The 28-year-old Seth Dembowitz, a grandson of a rabbi raised in Cherry Hill, NJ, and a Bear Stearns employee, died in the fire, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office said.
Fiirefighters were able to save his roommate with a ladder truck from the porch with just burns to his forearms.
The cause of death, based on the preliminary autopsy, was smoke and soot inhalation, as well as thermal burns to the outer body.
Investigators are treating Dembowitz's death as suspicious – as all unattended deaths are treated as suspicious.
Dembowitz's body was badly burned when rescue workers found him, and police are using dental to records to confirm that it is indeed Dembowitz. His family has been notified.
He worked in the global equities division of Bear Stearns in Brooklyn. Many in Hoboken who knew him expressed shock and grief upon hearing of his death.
I also work at Bear and just had a conversation with Seth last week about the McSwiggan’s fire.
When we found out yesterday what happened it was hard to fathom that we talked to him one day and that hes gone the next.
Now seeing his picture also made my stomach clench. It puts a different perspective on so many things.
I cannot imagine what his family must be going through and my condolences go out to them as well.
Boruch Dayan Emes
What a teribble ending to a Jewish life full of potential, condolences to the devastated family, may they know no more tzaar.
Was he married? any children?
My sincere condolonces to his family and friends. What a tragedy.
I’m a friend of Seth’s – we went to Rutgers together and were both members of the Cap and Skull society. He was a good friend, a leader on campus and one of those people you always refer to as a “good guy.” He will be missed by all of us who knew him.
R’L – what a horrifc story! May HKB”H Send the true nechama to the family!
Anonymous 3:03
Hashem bore Adam a son??
I thought it was Chava.
Boruch Dayan Emes. The name Seth is a name from the Torah after the two brothers Kayin and Hevel had some dispute when one murderd the other, so Hahem bore another son for Adam and he named him Seth. Even tough this has nothing to do with this story, I just wanted to put my input on this unfamilliar yiddish name.