I’m Killing Myself And Taking An Entire City Block With Me

Authorities believe that the big blast that leveled an Upper East Side building was part of a suicide attempt:

The demented doctor suspected of blowing up his $9 million upper East Side brownstone yesterday morning was on the verge of losing his beloved home in a bitter divorce settlement — and had vowed to “die in my house.”

Shortly before leveling the four-story E. 62nd St. building with a huge gas explosion that ignited terror fears and injured 15 pedestrians and firefighters, Dr. Nicholas Bartha sent a rambling, 14-page e-mail aimed at his estranged wife and other targets of his fury.

“When you read these lines your life will change forever. You deserve it,” the hulking physician ominously wrote his wife of 29 years, Cordula. “You will be transformed from gold digger to ash and RUBBISH digger.”

Bartha told her, “I will leave the house only if I am dead. You ridiculed me. You should have taken it seriously.”

The 66-year-old doctor e-mailed the poison-pen missive to at least a dozen other people and organizations — including California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Fox News Channel — shortly before the failed suicide blast that left him critically burned and buried. The city was rocked about 8:40 a.m. when, officials believe, Bartha opened up the gas lines in his 19th century building before sparking the blast that reduced the home to rubble and sent flames and smoke high into the clear morning sky.

“I thought it was a terrorist attack,” said David Kovac, 23, of Manhattan, who was walking past 34 E. 62nd St. when he was suddenly covered in ash.

Within minutes, the smoldering scene of devastation smack in one of the world’s wealthiest neighborhoods was on TV screens around the nation — drawing the attention of the White House, which quickly put out a statement saying the explosion was not terror-related.

The Doctor sounds like a charming guy:

The 66-year-old doctor tormented his wife of 29 years, a Holland-born Jew, with swastikas — and cut her off financially as she fought a life-and-death battle with breast cancer, court papers reveal.

. . .

His ex-lawyer said Nicholas Bartha just couldn’t accept the reality that he would eventually have to give up his precious building, believed to be worth up to $9 million, to pay his wife in a divorce settlement.

A friend said last night that the doctor had received an eviction notice Friday. The building was to be auctioned in October, sources said.

“He just didn’t get it,” said Ira Garr, the ex-lawyer, who stopped representing Bartha last year after the doctor abruptly stopped responding to calls and letters. “He couldn’t get his mind wrapped around it. He wanted to stay in the house, period.”

In the process of maiming passersby and endangering emergency workers, the Doctor also has destroyed a landmarked building:

The obliterated brownstone at 34 E. 62nd St. belonged to an elite group of buildings protected by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.

In May 1981, the city designated the four-story neo-Greco-style building a landmark within the upper East Side historic district.

The original owners, L.D. Russell and J.B. Wray, erected the stone-facade home in 1881-1882.

Whoever replaces the building must get approval from the commission and create a structure that resembles the original brownstone, according to commission Chairman Robert Tierney.

Meanwhile, the Doctor’s suicide e-mail includes jabs at Hillary Clinton and Cindy Sheehan. How that’s pertinent, I don’t know.