The family of an 81-year-old man who died alone on the frigid rooftop of his Brooklyn apartment building has blocked a city medical examiner autopsy for religious reasons, the Daily News has learned.
Everet Goldberg was found dead on the roof of the building on Avenue H near New York Ave. in Flatbush at about 9:55 a.m. Saturday.
Goldberg used to run a well-known cleaning business that employed many struggling artists, giving many of them a lifeline.
Neighbors believe Goldberg, who lived on the top floor of the six-story building, slipped on the icy roof trying to cross from one side of the building to the other because the elevator on his side wasn’t working. He was discovered dead by the building’s super 18 hours later.
“There was no apparent physical trauma, and so it seems most likely that he fell and died due to the extreme cold temperature,” the building’s management wrote in a letter to residents that reminded them roof access is not allowed.
But the victim’s family’s objection to an autopsy means his cause of death will never be known. Attempts by The News to reach Goldberg’s family were unsuccessful.
Eighteen people have perished in the city’s brutal cold stretch, Mayor Mamdani said Monday. Goldberg’s death is not being counted as one of them.
The victim was the owner of Manhattan Feather Dusters, a cleaning company that employed artists, musicians, writers and other creative New Yorkers as cleaners to help supplement their sometimes unstable incomes. He would befriend many of them and attend their performances and openings.
Artists are “esthetically oriented, detail oriented and fastidious,” Goldberg explained to the New York Times in 1998. Cleaning “helps them think,” he said. ”And they get instant results. If you’re a writer, you work a long time to see your book published. But if you clean a bathtub, you see the fruits of your labor instantly.”
Rebecca White / New York Daily News
Everet Goldberg was found on the roof of his apartment building on Avenue H near New York Ave. in Flatbush just before 10 a.m. on Saturday. (Rebecca White / New York Daily News)
On Friday afternoon building management alerted residents that the elevators on the right side of the building were out of order, said a woman who shared the text alerts with The News. Soon after she watched through her Ring camera as Goldberg opened the door to the roof around 3:40 p.m. while struggling to carry heavy grocery bags.
“He had like one big bag in one hand and then two medium-sized bags in the other,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “I know he struggled with those bags and to maneuver his way across that icy path, it was very treacherous. I feel bad. I saw him but I would never think … .”
“His car was double-parked,” she added. “I’m assuming his intention was to go drop off the stuff and then go back downstairs. He never came back.”
The next morning, she looked outside and saw Goldberg’s body sprawled in the middle of the roof, with groceries all around him, as cops investigated. “I saw him lying on his back, and I saw one of the bags close to him,” she said. “Stuff was spilled, like grocery stuff.”
Goldberg was one of the first residents to move into the building and had lived there for over 40 years, neighbors said.
Rebecca White / New York Daily News
A resident saw victim Everet Goldberg struggle with bags as he ascended these 6th floor steps to the roof on Friday afternoon. (Rebecca White / New York Daily News)
“Our elevator has been acting up. It’s nothing new,” Luis Irizarry, 43, told the Daily News. “So what we’ve been doing forever is that we would take the elevator on this side to the roof, just cross over on the roof and then just come down.”
Irizarry crossed the roof Friday, before Goldberg’s fateful attempt.
“I did that myself, just to get home,” Irizarry said. “It was very icy. It’s just a sheet of ice.”
Goldberg started cleaning apartments as a New York University student in 1988, according to the New York Times. Over the years he expanded the business and at one point had a staff of 25.
Mayita Mendez for New York Daily News
Former cleaning company owner Everet Goldberg in a client’s apartment in Manhattan in 2008. Goldberg was found dead Saturday on the roof of his Brooklyn apartment building. (Mayita Mendez for New York Daily News)
“At first, I said, ‘Forget it – that’s like being a maid,’ ” singer Gene Howard told the NYTimes in 1995. “But I was tired of asking Mom for carfare and it was more money than I was making, so I put my tail between my legs and went down to see Everet Goldberg. He interviewed me for more than an hour — of course, he did most of the talking — before he would let me clean for him.”
Howard went on to perform in “La Boheme” with Opera North of Philadelphia.
When Emmy Award-winning costume designer Nancy Adzima’s rent skyrocketed, she picked up work with Manhattan Feather Dusters, crediting Goldberg with helping her stay in her apartment. “In the beginning, my friends didn’t understand,” Adzima told Crain’s New York in 2008. “But I really like to clean. I don’t think people realize how much fun this job can be.”
City Building Department records show no open violations in Goldberg’s building but dozens of prior complaints, many of them about the elevator being out of order.
An official at Medallion Real Estate, which manages the buidling, declined to comment Wednesday.
A warning sign near the stairs leading to the roof reads, “Do not walk up the steps. Alarm will sound.” But there was no alarm in operation when News reporters visited the building after Goldberg’s death, and neighbors said it had been removed some time back.
With Rocco Parascandola