“People were yelling and screaming from the fire escape. They were crying for help,” Mary Liu, 29, told the New York Daily News. “One lady jumped out of the building. It was chaos.”
Fire officials said three people jumped from windows, but all of them survived.
McNally said the fire was difficult to bring under control because the building _ like so many others in Chinatown _ is old and because there were strong winds fanning the flames. With the temperature hovering around 22 degrees and wind gusts up to 30 mph, fire officials said water from the hoses was freezing when it hit the ground.
By midmorning, the blaze was under control but the red-brick building was blackened from fire and smoke. McNally said the interior damage was extensive, with the roof and some of the floors partially collapsed. No other buildings were damaged.
The Fire Department was investigating the cause.
Last month, a Buildings Department inspection found “defective/exposed” electrical wiring in ceiling fixtures throughout the building and violations were served, according to city records.
The building is on a short residential street near the Manhattan Bridge in the heart of Chinatown, not far from the main artery Canal Street, where vendors hawk everything from knockoff handbags to live frogs and bootleg DVDs.
