Hot Spot

By Stephen McKinley

A fire in Sunnyside, Queens, last Thursday destroyed an Irish bar, a fruit and vegetable store and a Korean restaurant on the corner of 46th Street and Queens Boulevard, but was not believed to have been started maliciously.

The four-alarm fire was first reported at 5:10 Thursday morning and required 39 fire trucks and 170 firefighters to put it out, making it one of the biggest fires in the area in recent years. Fire marshals believe that the fire started accidentally in the kitchen of D’ Dong, the Korean restaurant, and spread rapidly to the Fresh Farm fruit and vegetable store next door, and J.J. Gilligan’s Irish bar next to that. It is believed that the properties shared a common ceiling, which allowed the blaze to spread rapidly.

One fireman suffered a shoulder injury, and was treated at Elmhurst hospital. Two other fire fighters received minor injuries and a civilian received a cut but refused medical attention.

The properties were reduced to charred ruins, but the fire was brought under control at 8:15 a.m., which, one fire marshal explained, is when firefighters have established that there are no remaining casualties or persons in danger, and when the fire, though still burning, will not spread any further.

At one point, a six-story apartment building seemed under threat from the fire as it raged through J.J. Gilligan’s next door, and residents were evacuated. The building’s double exterior wall prevented anything beyond minor smoke damage, and Red Cross volunteers were on hand to help residents and provided food and coffee.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani was on the scene as the fire was coming under control, and he spoke with locals and the owners of the businesses, promising assistance from the city with rebuilding and reopening. At the scene, the Red Cross handed out coffee and police directed traffic, while a large crowd of onlookers took in the scene, including some who watched from the 46th Street elevated subway stop.

Sunnyside resident Jim Feeley, originally from Sligo, said he had been wakened at 7 a.m. by the sound of helicopters overhead, then heard about the fire on TV.

J.J. Gilligan’s was to have celebrated a year’s anniversary under the ownership of Mags Callahan on Friday evening, and various GAA and soccer games were to have been shown on the bar’s TV over the weekend.

As firefighters continued to spray powerful jets of water into the smoking ruins, Callahan and her staff of four and other friends were consoling each other in McGuinness’s bar on 45th Street.

"I left the bar at 4:15 this morning," Callahan said. "I heard about the fire at 6. It seems it may have spread from the Korean restaurant’s basement."

A bartender, who did not want to be named, said that before closing time, regulars had discussed Friday’s anniversary.

"The regulars were there last night, talking about the anniversary, and having an unofficial party tomorrow night," she said. "I was the last bartender to be working there."

Callahan said that she would probably reopen the bar once she had figured out what lay ahead.

"Rudy Giuliani spoke to me, and promised funding from the city," she said. "He said that he’d be there for my reopening night. He said they’d provide what they could from the city."