A fire at a Midtown Manhattan building on Friday morning sent smoke billowing into the sky, already hazy with smoke from Canadian wildfires.
The Fire Department received a report around 7 a.m. of a duct fire at a restaurant at East 54th Street and Madison Avenue, John Corcoran, the New York Fire Department’s deputy assistant chief for Manhattan, said at a news conference. The restaurant’s ductwork is connected to an adjoining 43-story commercial building, he said.
Over 200 people were evacuated from the office building, the chief said, adding that five people had minor injuries and one of them was taken to a hospital.
The fire was under control by around 9:30 a.m., the Fire Department said. The connected ductwork posed challenges to firefighters, according to Chief Corcoran, who called it “a very unique operation.”
Evacuated workers waited for hours on the sidewalk on Friday morning as fire crews continued to work. On East 54th Street, about a dozen line cooks from the office building’s restaurants sat on a curb, still wearing their kitchen uniforms.
Edwin Mejia, 22, a cook at Santi, said that around 7 a.m. he left his kitchen to go to the bathroom and saw a cook from Papillon, where the fire started, running around frantically looking for an official to report the blaze.
“He looked distraught. But he couldn’t find anyone,” Mr. Mejia said. “The building had just opened.”
When Dominick Vecchione, 66, an accountant, arrived to work just after 7 a.m., he saw a yellow plume wafting from the top of the building and smelled smoke, but figured it was related to the wildfires in Canada. He was evacuated, he said, as he watched dozens of firefighters arrive.
“They just kept coming,” he said. “More and more firemen. More and more equipment.”
By 10:30 a.m., East 53rd and East 54th Streets were closed to traffic between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue. At least a dozen fire trucks and other emergency vehicles remained on the scene. The city’s emergency notification system advised “avoiding smoke exposure from structural fires by closing windows while indoors and reducing outdoor activity where smoke is present.”
The air quality had improved slightly in New York City on Friday morning, but was still considered “unhealthy” in other parts of the state, according to state officials, and the reprieve could be short-lived, with smoke returning over the weekend.
Glenn Casey, 68, a maintenance worker at the building, said he was called to the basement below Papillon just before 7 a.m. to respond to a water leak.
“The water was dripping down from the walls; it was dripping down so dang fast,” he said. “We were trying to scoop it up. Then the smoke started to build up real bad. It got into my lungs.”
Mr. Casey, who had been waiting outside for hours, said the poor air quality had only made the experience more miserable.
“My lungs are hurting,” he said. “I need to go home.”
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