Dry Cleaners On Fabric Row Catches Fire In Queen Village
Dry Cleaners On Fabric Row Catches Fire In Queen Village
UPDATE (945am): Witnesses say the fire restarted at 1am firefighers continued fighting the fire until 5am.
Yesterday afternoon a fire broke out at the dry cleaners on the corner of 4th and Catharine in Queen Village immediately bringing back memories of the Fabric Row fire from April that claimed the life of a Philadelphia fire captain. The fire was reported just after 3pm yesterday and while firefighters were able to control the fire before 4pm, chaos ensued into the evening as fire and police blocked off the area near the burning property while neighbors and onlookers gathered. (see update above) The dry cleaners and fabric store at 771 South 4th Street is a mixed use property with three residential units located above the commercial space. The exterior of the building remains intact but dark smoke billowed out of the burning property and the adjacent property, which I own (indicated by red arrow in picture above) for several hours yesterday. My brother Joseph Cesarine who co-owns and occupies the adjacent property at 769 South 4th Street witnessed the entire event and was actually quoted in this article posted on Philly.com at 8pm last night.
“You could tell the smoke was coming out the windows, but it wasn’t like billowing out, it was more like seeping out,” described Joseph Cesarine, who owns a building next to the fabric store and lives on the first floor. “I went in probably like 10 minutes later to just grab some things and my whole apartment was full of smoke…”It was a weird feeling,” Cesarine said. “A lot of neighbors and store owners were outside, and we were talking about how that fire just happened and maybe 4th Street’s cursed.”
Thankfully, unlike the previous Fabric Row fire nobody was injured or killed.
