MANHATTAN - The man who died in a fire in the Lexington Avenue and East 63rd Street F station over the weekend has been identified as Anthony Horton, 43, an underground artist who co-wrote a graphic novel about his subterranean life, according to reports.
Horton was found in an unused communications room inside the station about 9 p.m. Sunday, officials said. Reports said he had been living in the unit and had it filled with couches and home furniture. The Medical Examiner's office ruled it an accidental death from smoke inhalation, burns to the head, torso and extremities.
In 2005, Horton met author Youme Landowne on the subway and the two later co-wrote Pitch Black: Don’t Be Skerd, a graphic novel based on his life. Pitch Black was nominated for several American Library Association book awards.
Landowne, who created the book’s illustrations based on Horton’s sketches, described Horton in an interview with the Daily News as “incredibly gentle and chivalrous.”
"He was an extremely talented writer with a great voice and sense of humor and he would draw everything all the time," Landowne said in an interview with the Daily News.
She said Horton had been living in abandoned rooms in the subway for two decades. The New York Times wrote that Horton was abandoned by his parents and spent part of his childhood in a children’s group home.
Pitch Black opens with the following passage about Horton’s upbringing:
"I was born to people who didn’t want me and so they gave me away. But I guess the people they gave me to didn’t want me either. No one wanted me. That’s why I ended up on the streets alone and uneducated. I couldn’t read or write. I didn’t know anything and the whole world knew it."
