The four Americans killed in a building collapse in Athens, Greece, have been identified as a newlywed New York couple, the bride’s brother and his pregnant wife.
Ian Alexander Kirkpatrick, 37, and his 34-year-old wife, Florida Hoxha, died with Hoxha’s older brother, Florin Hoxha, and his wife, Eris Cani, in the Sept. 25 tragedy, according to Newsday.
The deaths came less than a month after Ian Kirkpatrick and Florida Hoxha were married in an Aug. 30 ceremony, Newsday reported.
Authorities believe a gas leak may have caused an explosion that brought down the two-story Airbnb in Athens’ historic Plaka neighborhood.
Kirkpatrick, a senior lawyer and Bronx native, married Hoxha during a Long Island wedding on Aug. 30.
After the ceremony, the newlyweds spent a week in Mexico before traveling to Greece for a nine-day honeymoon.
They died on the day they were expected to fly home. The couple had checked in for their Delta flight but never arrived at Athens International Airport.
A 2007 Huntington High School graduate, Kirkpatrick began his career in Williamsburg, Virginia, where he worked as a research analyst for Strategic Analysis Enterprises. He later moved to China for an internship with Citi, according to his LinkedIn profile.
From June 2012 through June 2014, he worked as an analyst for Dianrong, a Chinese marketplace company, before returning to New York and spending seven years in banking.
For the five years before his death, Kirkpatrick worked for Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the Japanese financial services giant.
His mother, Suzanne Nelson, remembered him as “just a wonderful, incredible human being.”
“He was creative. He spoke Chinese. He had a zest for life,” Nelson told Newsday.
Nelson said Florida, Kirkpatrick’s wife of only a few weeks, was “the sun in the solar system.”
Florida Hoxha studied at Emory University and the City University of New York School of Law. She had traveled to Greece with her brother, Florin Hoxha, who died in the collapse with his wife, Eris Cani, who was five and a half months pregnant.
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Hoxha spent five years working for the New York Legal Assistance Group and was also considering a future in politics, according to Westchester County Legislator Vedat Gashi.
“She cared deeply about her environment,” Gashi told ABC7. “We have similar backgrounds. We’re both Albanian Americans. And she had a deep passion for helping other people.”
He recalled Hoxha as “smart, ambitious and devoted to her community.”
“I was deeply impressed by her, and I was excited to see where her passion and drive would take her,” Gashi said. “That future was taken far too soon.”
Florin Hoxha, 36, was an Emory University alumnus and co-founder of the construction firm Prufock Builders, which he established with his brother, Clyde.
Cani worked as an assistant professor of pharmacy practice at Touro College, a private university with a strong Jewish tradition.
Her background has always been in pharmacy since starting as an intern at Rite Aid in Philadelphia at 2007, where she worked for seven years.
She graduated from Temple University School of Science and Technology in 2009 before receiving her doctorate in 2014.
Cani practiced at the Bronx Lebanon Hospital, specializing in infectious diseases, and held residencies at the Einstein Medical Center in Pennsylvania and the SUNY Downstate campus in Brooklyn.
Edmond Hings, 78, and his Greek wife of 11 years Athena Papaprescou, 77, were also killed.
Greek authorities are still investigating the cause of the building collapse – almost a week later.
Investigators believe a gas leak happened in the apartment where Hings and his wife were staying.
But officials are now examining adjacent buildings after they were “deemed dangerous,” Paris Charlaftis, the Athens deputy mayor, told Greek outlet To Vima.
“The question is whether there is a risk that they could collapse, whether they are on the verge of collapse,” he said.
