TAKEN FROM THE NEW YORH POST.....
DOCTOR BOOM'S EAST SIDE BLAST
MANSION BLOWS IN GAS EXPLOSION
By MATHEW CHARLES, MURRAY WEISS and KATE SHEEHY
July 11, 2006 -- An explosive fireball leveled an Upper East Side mansion yesterday - the suspected work of a suicidal doctor from Transylvania hell-bent on enraging his ex-wife, cops and witnesses said.
"The whole building collapsed - in a few seconds, finished," said stunned coffee-cart vendor Thad Milonas, 57. The landmark, four-story building was reduced to a smoldering pile of brick rubble at 34 E. 62nd St. at 8:40 a.m.
The building's off-kilter owner and sole occupant, Nicholas Bartha - a 66-year-old cardiologist - was miraculously pulled alive from under tons of wreckage in the basement after firefighters heard his feeble cries.
"He was 12 feet down and to the left," said firefighter Richard Schmidt, 44. "[His] screams were faint. He was hurting."
When rescuers reached the plump physician and asked him what happened, he only moaned, "I want to go to a hospital. I want to get treated."
Bartha, an immigrant who survived the Nazis as a child, was fighting for his life at New York Hospital after suffering second- and third-degree burns.
Amazingly, the only other seriously injured victim was a 22-year-old Parks Department worker slashed by flying shards of glass as she walked by the home.
Authorities suspect a gas leak caused the blast - likely after Bartha tinkered with a heater and hookup in the basement.
In a vitriolic e-mail that the doctor fired off to his ex-wife, Cordula Hahn, hours before the blast, he ominously warned: "You will be transformed from gold digger to ash and rubble digger."
The heavily-in-debt doc had been locked in a brutal divorce battle that was forcing him to sell his beloved, $10 million home.
"I always told you I will the leave the house only if I am dead," Bartha seethed in the e-mail.
Divorce papers reveal just how toxic the pair's relationship had become. They describe one instance in which Bartha taunted his ex-wife, a fellow Holocaust survivor, with swastikas he plastered around their home.
Bartha's office partner, Dr. Paul Mantia, said his troubled old friend received the final blow - an eviction notice - Friday.
"He loved the building. . . . He planned to work until he was 80 and live there until he died. . . . I'm sure the eviction notice took him over the edge," Mantia said.
"He did this because of the divorce . . . It wasn't an accident . . . It's very sad," added Mantia, who was bicycling to the office when he came upon the horrific scene.
The shattered partner described Bartha as "an old-fashioned, great doctor," albeit with "hard edges."
He said doctors have warned him that Bartha has only a 20 percent chance of surviving.
Yesterday's horror came after two previous suicide tries by Bartha, an emergency-room doctor who has worked at Lenox Hill Hospital as well as Phelps and Mount Vernon in Westchester.
Last year, he was discovered barricaded in his basement, nearly unconscious, after being overcome by gas, officials said.
And several years earlier, he had locked himself in his office and tried to do himself in by setting off an insecticide bomb, sources said.
Neighbors reported smelling gas shortly before yesterday's blast.
A Con Edison worker had been called to the next-door building, but he didn't notice anything and left only five minutes before the structure exploded, sources said.
Bartha's badly shaken secretary missed being caught in the collapse by minutes.
"I was supposed to be in there," the woman said. A female passer-by who overheard her turned and said, "Thank God, this is your lucky day."
Three other civilians and 14 firefighters also suffered minor injuries in the disaster.
The 19th-century structure housed medical offices in the basement and first floor, a tenant's apartment on the second and Bartha's duplex pad above. The tenant wasn't home at the time.
Bartha's mother had lived on the second floor, performing manicures and pedicures, before she died in 1997, neighbors said.
The woman who initially took over the mother's apartment said Bartha seemed very upset when she arranged her furniture differently than his mom had.
On at least three occasions, she said, she returned home from work and found him inside. She said he told her, "This is set up all wrong. My mother didn't have it set up like this.
"I had to keep reminding him that he just couldn't keep entering someone's apartment," she said. "I left after one year. I couldn't wait to get out."
Sources said investigators had talked to his ex-wife and were trying to reach their two adult daughters, none of whom was believed to have visited him in the hospital.
A family representative said outside the ex-wife's house that they were all "deeply saddened" and wished "the best for Dr. Bartha."
Except, maybe, his ex-sister-in-law, Erna. "He was just miserable," she said.
....................................sometimes get'n married can lead to very bad Divorce..........
DOCTOR BOOM'S EAST SIDE BLAST
MANSION BLOWS IN GAS EXPLOSION
By MATHEW CHARLES, MURRAY WEISS and KATE SHEEHY
July 11, 2006 -- An explosive fireball leveled an Upper East Side mansion yesterday - the suspected work of a suicidal doctor from Transylvania hell-bent on enraging his ex-wife, cops and witnesses said.
"The whole building collapsed - in a few seconds, finished," said stunned coffee-cart vendor Thad Milonas, 57. The landmark, four-story building was reduced to a smoldering pile of brick rubble at 34 E. 62nd St. at 8:40 a.m.
The building's off-kilter owner and sole occupant, Nicholas Bartha - a 66-year-old cardiologist - was miraculously pulled alive from under tons of wreckage in the basement after firefighters heard his feeble cries.
"He was 12 feet down and to the left," said firefighter Richard Schmidt, 44. "[His] screams were faint. He was hurting."
When rescuers reached the plump physician and asked him what happened, he only moaned, "I want to go to a hospital. I want to get treated."
Bartha, an immigrant who survived the Nazis as a child, was fighting for his life at New York Hospital after suffering second- and third-degree burns.
Amazingly, the only other seriously injured victim was a 22-year-old Parks Department worker slashed by flying shards of glass as she walked by the home.
Authorities suspect a gas leak caused the blast - likely after Bartha tinkered with a heater and hookup in the basement.
In a vitriolic e-mail that the doctor fired off to his ex-wife, Cordula Hahn, hours before the blast, he ominously warned: "You will be transformed from gold digger to ash and rubble digger."
The heavily-in-debt doc had been locked in a brutal divorce battle that was forcing him to sell his beloved, $10 million home.
"I always told you I will the leave the house only if I am dead," Bartha seethed in the e-mail.
Divorce papers reveal just how toxic the pair's relationship had become. They describe one instance in which Bartha taunted his ex-wife, a fellow Holocaust survivor, with swastikas he plastered around their home.
Bartha's office partner, Dr. Paul Mantia, said his troubled old friend received the final blow - an eviction notice - Friday.
"He loved the building. . . . He planned to work until he was 80 and live there until he died. . . . I'm sure the eviction notice took him over the edge," Mantia said.
"He did this because of the divorce . . . It wasn't an accident . . . It's very sad," added Mantia, who was bicycling to the office when he came upon the horrific scene.
The shattered partner described Bartha as "an old-fashioned, great doctor," albeit with "hard edges."
He said doctors have warned him that Bartha has only a 20 percent chance of surviving.
Yesterday's horror came after two previous suicide tries by Bartha, an emergency-room doctor who has worked at Lenox Hill Hospital as well as Phelps and Mount Vernon in Westchester.
Last year, he was discovered barricaded in his basement, nearly unconscious, after being overcome by gas, officials said.
And several years earlier, he had locked himself in his office and tried to do himself in by setting off an insecticide bomb, sources said.
Neighbors reported smelling gas shortly before yesterday's blast.
A Con Edison worker had been called to the next-door building, but he didn't notice anything and left only five minutes before the structure exploded, sources said.
Bartha's badly shaken secretary missed being caught in the collapse by minutes.
"I was supposed to be in there," the woman said. A female passer-by who overheard her turned and said, "Thank God, this is your lucky day."
Three other civilians and 14 firefighters also suffered minor injuries in the disaster.
The 19th-century structure housed medical offices in the basement and first floor, a tenant's apartment on the second and Bartha's duplex pad above. The tenant wasn't home at the time.
Bartha's mother had lived on the second floor, performing manicures and pedicures, before she died in 1997, neighbors said.
The woman who initially took over the mother's apartment said Bartha seemed very upset when she arranged her furniture differently than his mom had.
On at least three occasions, she said, she returned home from work and found him inside. She said he told her, "This is set up all wrong. My mother didn't have it set up like this.
"I had to keep reminding him that he just couldn't keep entering someone's apartment," she said. "I left after one year. I couldn't wait to get out."
Sources said investigators had talked to his ex-wife and were trying to reach their two adult daughters, none of whom was believed to have visited him in the hospital.
A family representative said outside the ex-wife's house that they were all "deeply saddened" and wished "the best for Dr. Bartha."
Except, maybe, his ex-sister-in-law, Erna. "He was just miserable," she said.
....................................sometimes get'n married can lead to very bad Divorce..........
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