One of the city’s newest FDNY inspectors knows firsthand the devastation a fire can wreak — her sister was one of 87 people killed in the flames of the Happy Land arson nearly three decades ago.
On Monday, when Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro swears in Taja Marlow as a fire prevention inspector, she’ll be thinking of her adored big sister, Kim, and everything she could have been.
"She was star of the family,” said Marlow, 30, who was just 2 when Kim, the eldest of six children, died. “She took care of everyone. She was the one that kept the family together.
“I feel like I’m doing this for her.” Kim Marlow was celebrating with her girlfriends at the illegal Bronx nightclub on March 25, 1990, when Julio Gonzalez was tossed out for fighting with his former girlfriend.
Gonzalez returned with $1 worth of gasoline, poured it around the club’s only door and watched the place go up in flames.