Surfside collapse victim was a father of four who couldn’t wait to be a grandfather

When Frankie Kleiman’s high school friends saw the 55-year-old for the last time at a Fathers’ Day get-together on June 20, he couldn’t stop smiling. His eyes shone as he spoke about becoming a grandfather for the first time. His daughter, Arielle, was expecting a baby girl, and he would love his child’s child like his own.

“It’s such a feeling I can’t describe, that I’m giving him his first grandchild,” said Arielle, “He really was so happy, and so excited, not just for me, but because he was going to be an abuelo.”

Then, among friends celebrating fatherhood at the open-air pig roast, there was no shadow of the tragedy that would envelop Kleiman’s family only four days later.

Hours before the collapse came the family reunion. Frankie’s brother Jay had traveled to Miami from Puerto Rico to attend a friend’s funeral. He stayed with his mother, Nancy, in Unit 712. Frankie and his new wife, Ana Ortiz, and her son Luis Bermúdez, lived on the same floor.

All five disappeared when the 12-story condo tower collapsed on June 24, leaving loved ones in Puerto Rico and Florida praying the family survived the fall and the debris. But on June 28, Frankie’s body was found in the rubble, his wife and stepson discovered lifeless two days before. Nancy and Jay were recovered on July 5.

Man with ‘an eternal smile’

Frank Kleiman was born on June 18, 1966, the firstborn of Saul Kleiman and Nancy Kress Levin. A child of the Cuban diaspora, he was raised in Puerto Rico in a tight-knit and vibrant Jewish community.

He attended Saint John’s School, a beachfront school in San Juan, and became a beloved member of the Class of 1985. Classmates described him as a person who was so joyful, his happiness was infectious. At a class reunion about 15 years ago, he was nicknamed the “man with an eternal smile.”

“He was a joy, an energy so positive,” said Bruno Rodríguez, one of his former classmates.

Like many Puerto Ricans, Frankie bounced between Florida and the island throughout his life. Frankie and his brother Jay moved to Miami in the 10th grade, when Nancy and Saul separated and his mother left the island.

But he remained a part of his Saint John’s school community, joining graduation activities like the “senior cruise” and attending class reunions over the last 35 years. For many high school classmates, like Alex Garcia, Frankie is a cornerstone of important milestones and fondest memories.

“Frankie was my best man. Frankie and I partied in Vegas. We have so much history together,” Garcia said. “It’s impossible to say that I was Frankie’s best friend, but Frankie is a best friend. He’s the guy that you can count on.”

Frankie moved back to Puerto Rico after graduating from Drexel University with a bachelor’s degree in finance. For two decades, he worked in the family business, Almacenes Linda, and helped expand the operation into a major retail and clothing enterprise that owned multiple local chains.

Even when the venture was rocked by serious financial difficulties, friends said he was still the “happy-go-lucky” man who “never complained.”

A father who’s also a friend

He had four children with his ex-wife Jenny Levin: 28-year-old Joshua, 26-year-old twins Arielle and Joel, and 23-year-old Noah.

He often shared photographs of his kids on his social media. No moment was too big or small to record, whether it was an ice cream date or a university graduation. Sometimes, he posted old, grainy images of what he called the “wonder years’‘ — smiles in school uniform, tumbling pyramids of siblings, a chocolate-covered grin.

Every morning, Frankie drove his four young children to Saint John’s School.

“Nobody wanted to wake up at 7 a.m to get to school,” said Joshua. “But he would always like to pump us up in the morning and blast his music and CDs. And the games we’d play in the car.”

Joshua, Arielle, Joel, and Noah described their father as a fun-loving, humorous man who was a kid at heart. He liked to rent convertibles on holiday and drive with the roof down. He collected and assembled complex miniature cars that took hours to glue together. At any party, he was the last one to leave the dance floor. His love of classic rock drove him and friends to dress up as KISS -- wig and face paint included. His eye for fashion made him into his children’s fashion advisor.

Frankie took his children along with him on trips to Chicago, New York, Colorado, and Mexico. Even on business trips in Manhattan, he would make time to take them to the American Girl shop and Sports Zone.

No matter how busy or preoccupied Frankie was, his children knew that they could count on their father, whose calm and grounded demeanor served as an anchor even in the toughest moments of their lives.

“Even if he was in a meeting, he would text us and say, give me two minutes, I’ll call you right back,” said eldest son. “He was always there with anything and everything, whether it was school, personal.”

After his sons’ football practice, there was always Gatorade and sports conversation on the way home.

“He was a father who’s also a friend,” said Joel.

René Fernández, a classmate from Saint John’s, called Frankie a “tremendous father who “adored his children and was always there.”

Fernández reconnected with Frankie at a 20-year-class reunion, where the close class spent a weekend at the crystalline shores of Puerto Rico’s southern beaches. Sometimes the two met three times a week for drinks and food around San Juan. Frankie and his brother Jay, devoted fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, watched football games at Fernández’s house.

Frankie went back to South Florida at the beginning of 2015, joining his mother on the seventh floor of Champlain Towers South. He did not return to Surfside alone, moving into Unit 712 with Ana Ortiz, a single mom he had met through Garcia in the mid-2000s. The mutual friend joked Frankie had been a “lady killer” when they were schoolboys.

‘New venture, new beginnings’

Frankie and Ana built a life together. The couple danced at Frankie’s daughter’s wedding and visited his youngest at college. They looked up at the Freedom Tower in New York City and stood 90 miles from Cuba in Key West, surrounded by blue ocean. They ate their way through South Florida, went to sports games, visited the theater.

Arielle lived with him for two years in the Surfside apartment building after college.

“I don’t drink coffee, I don’t like the smell of coffee,” she said, “and every morning he had a cup ready, knowing I didn’t drink it, but he had to always make sure in case you wanted it, you had everything you needed.”

The fridge and pantry were always stocked with the foods Arielle liked, and he greeted his daughter every day with a smile.

“He gave the best hugs,” she said. “It was just so calming, and you felt the squeeze, and the love.”

Frankie also became a “great” stepdad to Ana’s son, Luis, who had muscular dystrophy and used a wheelchair, Garcia said. Weeks before the condo collapsed, the couple had married, he added.

Garcia last saw his friends at the Father’s Day party in Boca Raton, where a group of Puerto Ricans, many Saint John’s alumni, congregated for the lechonada. Frankie and Ana spent hours chatting and laughing with friends, sharing details about a postal office business they had recently set up together.

“New venture, new beginnings,” wrote Frankie about the enterprise. Many who met him through the business— customers, FEDEX and UPS workers, colleagues— have reached out to his children.

“They’re like, ‘Your father made an impact on us,’” said Noah. ”’He had a smile, he made us feel welcomed and at home.’”

The new beginnings Frankie had hoped for — cradling his soon-to-be born granddaughter, settling into married life, running a promising business — were halted when Champlain Towers South cracked and crumbled under a full moon.

But in death, Frankie continues to pull his communities together. His classmates, spread across Puerto Rico and the United States, will reunite in Miami and San Juan to celebrate his joyous spirit.

And Arielle will tell her daughter stories of who her grandfather was in life.

“She’s going to know all about him,” she said, “and abuelo will always be number one.”

This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 3:07 PM.