Bono Fuming Over Apartment Fireplace Flap

NEW YORK (May 16, 2007) — Bono is grappling with a new version of the unforgettable fire, and it has nothing to do with his band’s 1984 album: The rocker-activist is embroiled in a flap over fireplaces at his Manhattan apartment building.

The U2 frontman has told co-op board members at the stately San Remo that smoke from other residents’ fireplaces is wafting into the penthouse duplex he shares with his family, The New York Times reported.

The building’s fireplaces have long-standing problems, said Leni May, the wife of board member Peter May.

“Bono was so nice,” she said. “He said, `Listen, whatever I can do to get these things working, but it’s emptying into my apartment and I can’t have smoke like that.”’ The singer told the board that one of his four children has asthma, Leni May said.

The building’s board banned the use of fireplaces to study the issue, raising the ire of some owners whose units include them, the Times said.

Principle Management, the company that manages U2, said the singer was raising a safety concern, not a personal peeve.

“This is not a Bono issue,” a Principle Management representative said. “It’s a building issue. It’s about health and safety regulations.”

The 1930 building on Central Park West has had several other celebrity residents, including Dustin Hoffman and Diane Keaton. The building’s board famously said no to Madonna when she tried to buy an apartment there in 1985.

Bono bought his apartment from Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, said the listing broker, Roger Erickson, a senior managing director at Sothebys International Realty.

Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson, and his wife, Ali Hewson, also have homes in Dublin, Ireland, and in the south of France.

The singer, 47, has become prominent in politics as well as rock. He was in Germany this week to push for more aid to Africa from the world’s biggest industrial countries.