“She told me there was a fire in the building and she was trapped,” Christine Batiz wrote. “I never heard from her again. Later on, at around 1 a.m., I heard the news I never thought I would hear. I lost my angel baby and my best friend, my mother. The lady who birthed and would do anything for me is gone. I lost everything in a matter of minutes.”

Around the Belmont neighborhood on Friday, the loss of four members of one family, the Stewarts, carried a heavy resonance. In all, 13 family members — cousins, uncles, aunts — all lived in the building. They had moved to New York City from Jamaica and decided to stay close.

On Friday morning, Ambrozia Stewart stood on the corner of East 187th Street and Prospect Avenue, weeping into the frigid air. She had lost her youngest daughter, Karen Stewart-Francis, 37, and three granddaughters: Kylie Francis, 2, and Kelly Francis, 7; and Shawntay Young, 19, their cousin.

“I don’t know what to do and I don’t know how to feel. I need somebody to tell me what to feel,” Ms. Stewart said. “Where do I go from here? Four at one time — what do I do?”

Maria Rivera, 37, who lives in the building next door, said the Stewarts were familiar faces and that their generosity extended beyond their own relatives. “They were always together,” she said. When the weather was nice, they would host barbecues and invite neighbors to join them. “Come, you want to eat?” was their refrain.

Shevan Stewart, 44, another of Ambrozia’s daughters, said that her mother immigrated to the United States in the late 1980s, and that 19 of her family members followed her in 2004.