Sunday, October 24, 2010

Breaking: Early-morning fire at Otto's Shrunken Head

An employee arriving to work this morning just after 9 at Otto's Shrunken Head on 14th Street was met with thick black smoke coming from inside the bar.



According to witnesses, the employee grabbed a fire extinguisher and set about battling the source of the smoke himself. Firefighters quickly arrived on the scene and had things under control. No official word just yet on what started the fire. There were also no reports of injuries.





An alert super helped make sure residents who lived above the bar got out of the building. The residents also had the time to secure their pets.

7 comments:

Cat Sitter in the City said...

Great reporting as always, EV. Glad all of the people and the pets got out of the building.

Jill said...

Wow, this block is just going down in flames.

Kurt said...

This reminds me of what happened to the bar, Global 33, which is now housing Lit. A barback put a cigarette in the trash that he thought was extinguished at the end of the night and it put the whole place on fire.

adeline.jane said...

it was not an 'alert super.' in fact our super didn't show up for hours despite numerous police calls. it was in fact a random passerby with a shopping cart who buzzed each unit 3-4 times, woke us all up, and alerted us that 'your building is on fire. get out of the building now!' when thanking him later his response was 'any new yorker would have done the same.' not sure i agree. I am still trying to.find out who he is. I believe in credit where its due.

NycPunk13 said...

Glad everyone’s OK. Hope Otto’s won’t be affected or closed for too long.

EV Grieve said...

Thanks for setting the record straight, Lee.

Punk Rope said...

I love Otto's. It's one of the best bars in the city. I'm heading over there now to help with the clean up effort and I encourage all of you to patronize the bar as much as possible in the coming weeks and months. Let's get them right back on their feet. Monday night my Punk Rope group will be there for a special happy hour. Perhaps I'll see you there.