As Christmas approached, Mr. Halberian, 83, said he did not feel well enough to visit his daughter, Michele H. Kazarian, in Rhode Island. Nor could he manage an upstate trip to see his son, John. On the day after Christmas, he felt worse.

“The doctor said, ‘You have to get to the hospital  I can’t help you from home,’ ” Ms. Kazarian said.

If only he had called for an ambulance immediately.

By the next morning, the city had been buried in the after-Christmas snowstorm. It took nearly half an hour for an ambulance to crawl through the unplowed streets  and even then, it could not make it up the hill on 41st Street. The tenants who shared the mansion walked Mr. Halberian out the side door, toward the gate. He collapsed.

The paramedics, who had to abandon the ambulance and walk to the mansion, carried him into the front hall. He died under the chandelier, Ms. Kazarian and her brother said.