MIAMI, Fla. — “She was my baby,” shared Pablo Langesfeld.
Nicky Langesfeld was just 26 years old, an aspiring attorney, when she lost her life two years ago in the Surfside Condo collapse.
She and her husband, Luis, had lived in the Champlain Towers South for just three months before the unthinkable happened.
Her father, Pablo, raced to the scene when he heard the news, “There was no building.”
He furthered, “I was counting the floors to see where Nicole was supposed to be, but half of the floor was gone. It was like a horror movie that did not end. It hasn’t ended. It will never end.”
Two years after Nicky and her husband’s death, Pablo and his son Martin are still grieving.
“We stand and just think what her life could have been,” said Martin, Nicky’s brother, while overlooking the site of the collapse.
But the pair still have questions.
“We don’t know what happened. We don’t know who’s at fault. We don’t know who’s liable. There were over 41 defendants. No one has claimed responsibility. No accountability. What is this,” asked Pablo.
Each year, they have come up short with answers.
But what has changed is the lot where the collapse happened is now under construction for a new development.
Last year, one bidder, DAMAC Properties, promised to build another high-rise.
The designer said, “While no work of architecture can ever remove the pain of the past, nor should it, a truly ambitious work of architecture can respect such a significant site.”
It’s something that families like the Langesfelds have had to stomach.
“No respect. They just removed all the banners, all the flowers, everything. Like nothing happened, like business as usual,” shared Pablo. “It’s disgusting.”
Even with that sentiment, the Langesfeld men told Florida 24 Network that they are not trying to stop the construction.
But they are upset that a memorial that has been promised to them and other families still has not been built.
“To me, every day is an anniversary. It’s sad,” said Pablo. “It makes me sick to my stomach that there is no respect.”
“This is not a normal life that we live now, surrounded by cameras and microphones just trying to explain that answers would mean so much to us and how a memorial on the side of the collapse will bring just a little bit of respect and closure,” said Martin.
So Florida 24 Network went in search of answers for them. We spoke with Mayor Shlomo Danzinger, who took office just last year.
He created a memorial committee comprised of family members whose initial focus was commemorating the first anniversary of the collapse.
Last December, he said stakeholders and families started planning out the memorial site.
It’s something he admits took time, “In government, everything moves slow.” Danzinger furthered, “But it is moving at a decent pace, especially when you consider how long some of these other memorials have taken in some of these bigger cities after these tragedies.”
The town has already allocated funding for a memorial which has now allowed them to create a Request for Proposal (RFP) to architects. The mayor is hoping to hear back from some by the end of this month.
“The memorial has always been a priority. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of moving pieces, so as much as we want it to be the first and top thing, the administration has a city to run, and there’s other fires we are trying to put out throughout the day,” he said.
He continued, “There really isn’t much to do. The hardest thing to do sometimes is to just sit and wait…But things are moving behind the scenes.”
The mayor said since they cannot build on the site, as it is private property, his focus now is seeing how much land can be used on the street adjacent to the site.
For families mourning those they love, they are just hoping for a place of remembrance to be built soon and for answers as to why this happened to come quickly.
“It still feels like a never-ending nightmare where you look behind you and try to find answers as to why your family was in that building regardless of what the cause of the collapse was. The building fell in 12 seconds, in the middle of the night, and there are no answers. And looking over this and trying to remember the last time we spoke. All the memories we had as kids. It’s very hard. It never gets easier seeing the empty hole behind me,” shared a solemn Martin.
Pablo said, “We want answers, we want justice, and hopefully, lessons so that this collapse never happens again.”
