There's still smoke.

The fire surprised us in lasting right into the morning. And I don't mean 1am, I mean 10am. So when we walked past last night at 10pm on our way to a restaurant, the fire had already started, but no one had noticed. And when we returned around 12am fire crews had been on the scene for some time, perhaps 30 minutes already, but they were still working on closing off Grand from Allen Street.

That morning, it was clear that there was quite a bit of damage to not just the primary building (283) which is the third from Eldridge street, but also the buildings left and right of it, and at the corner containing a pharmacy/cosmetics store, the 2rd building in containing the fish market, and the 4th building containing a market. The shorter building with Pho Grand at the street level was also closed due to smoke damage, but did not apparently have fire damage.

On scene was a mobile command unit for the FDNY and several TV news crews. Overhearing answers to reporters questions it seems 29 fighters were injured, but didn't have a distinction between major and minor injuries.. They only hospitalized 2 civilians for smoke inhalation but others went in to get more minor injuries attended to. Given that there were apparently ~60 families evacuated, that's pretty good. The count of families is also surprisingly large. Also there were still "hotspots" which smoked and smoldered giving off plasticly fumes.
Update: Late today one elderly man was found to have died in the fire. This is quite unfortunate, but overall a fairly good effort by the FDNY.

A 7 alarm fire has not happened in 2 years it seems; with the last one being at the empty Deutsche Bank building which was being demolished when it caught fire. The problem there was insufficient water in the building as code required.

Finally I'll note an anecdote that I saw two orthodox Jewish men who drove up Grand to Allen, parked and quickly ran to the actual scene and got through the barriers, all while on mobile phones. Some persons in the crowd speculated these men either owned the building or warehoused some goods (fabrics) inside. Personally I don't like to speculate, but I also read that the building had been for sale by for some time, and that they hadn't found a buyer. I'd say that's due mostly to the downturn and in part to some neglect and the presence of tenants.

The tidbit I heard about the landlord frequently claiming to be on vacation out of state, reminds me strongly of the landlord I had on the upper east side that claimed (apart from being a nun) to be spending half the year at a religious retreat in Florida. The building was owned by Faith Ministries, and I never found out which denomination that referred to other than that it was Christian and held services "upstate". Finding the incorporation records the address was in Huntington Long Island and Google maps showed it was near a baseball field near a school on a street where each home had a pool, I couldn't spot a church, but then, not all churches look like they're churches. We did get a religious rate on our utilities. This nun also swore at me on the phone a couple times in reference to a change in the rental agreement I didn't sign. All other staff was on premises and Hispanic, most were very nice but none claimed to attend this church, being mostly catholic. I'm no detective, but it never seemed to sit right with me.

As an another aside the photo for that New York Times story shows how much nicer a full frame CMOS sensor from 2009 is than a 2/3" CCD sensor from 2005.

Street closings:
Car traffic is cut off on Grand Street from Allen to Forsyth streets and on Eldridge from Grand to Hester streets. Foot traffic is similarly cut off, but side-walks are open up to Grand 1 Bakery's door on the south and to the furniture store on the North. Natalie's Bakery (formerly Egg Custard King) is using it's side entrance on Forsyth. This is bad news for the newly opened Cheng Sheng market at grand and Eldridge, which opened a month ago after the location was closed for about half a year, as it is for Lok Ling restaurant, Fairtown Trading Inc (grocery) and everything in between. The closing did reintroduce me to bakery at about 242 Grand street which serves a nice coffee and pastries, as Great Bakery Inc (my local favorite) had no buns today.