As I write this, at my apartment, the sound of helicopters overhead is constant, and two people who were in the sushi restaurant, Nicholas Figueroa and Moises Locon, are known to be missing. Some two dozen were injured, four critically. And whole buildings are gone. On Twitter, people were lamenting the loss of their beloved Pommes Frites, the late-night standby that made its corner of the world smell like French fries. Other people on Twitter berated the frites lamenters, and still others pleaded for understanding between the two camps. We could mourn all of these losses, they said.
I agree. It’s important not to be glib. It’s important to focus on the missing, the injured, the brave people who escaped and helped others escape, and the people who lost their homes and businesses. The softer losses, the cultural losses, the neighborhood losses, are not as important. But they’re losses, too. They’re things we love — parts of our lives that we take for granted and now understand to be, or have been, vulnerable. They feel like trivial things, but they represent fundamental things: what we love and care about, their permanence and impermanence.
Con Edison this morning shut off gas to 219 customers (187 residential; 32 commercial) in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan while the Fire Department of New York continues recovery work at the site of yesterday’s explosion and buildings collapse on 2nd Avenue near 7th Street.
Meantime, we keep the missing and injured in our thoughts and prayers.
As we do in all cases when a customer is upgrading to a new gas service, we conducted careful inspections at 121 2nd Avenue. Our records show the work of the building’s plumber failed two inspections, including the inspection our personnel conducted yesterday afternoon. At no time was use of the new service line authorized by Con Edison. That service was locked to ensure that it would not be used. The ground-floor restaurant was being served by its current, smaller gas service line.
Con Edison continues to work with the FDNY and NYPD to restore service to customers as soon as it is deemed safe. We have contacted the customers shut off today and have also established an incident workgroup to focus 24/7 on the needs and concerns of all customers who live in the impacted zone.
Safety is always our priority, and we continue to urge people to call 9-1-1 or their gas utility immediately if they smell a gas odor.
Mr. Kim said he believed tenants had started moving into the building’s upstairs floors last summer, after the landlord, Maria Hrynenko, completed renovations. He said he suspected they were getting their gas from the neighboring building, 119 Second Avenue, which city records show is also owned by Ms. Hrynenko. She did not return calls for comment on Friday. Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested at a news conference on Friday that city officials had a similar suspicion.
Friday night #eastvillage @evgrieve pic.twitter.com/8OpG1d6mPy
— EventPhotosNYC (@Eventphotosnyc) March 28, 2015
We’ll be taking Citi Bike offline at 10 pm Friday through the weekend for maintenance. After 10 pm you will not be able to check out a bike.
During this time members will not be able to access their accounts. The membership sign-up page, Citi Bike station map and Citi Bike app will also be unavailable.
We’ve timed this work to make sure we’re back online in time to get our members pedaling by Monday morning.
We will be extend all active Citi Bike memberships by three days and issuing refunds for anyone who purchased a 24-hour pass on Friday 3/27. We will also offer refunds to anyone who purchased a 7-day pass earlier in the week.
We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. We wanted to make these upgrades to improve Citi Bike before the nicest riding weather begins.
Good news! We're coming back online a bit early. Find out more: http://t.co/utD1AVN1rY
— Citi Bike (@CitiBikeNYC) March 28, 2015
Help support families affected by the #EastVillage building collapse by donating to the @nycmayorsfund: http://t.co/wqHYrzPgwT
— NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) March 27, 2015“As I got closer to the corner I could feel the concussion bounced off the building across the street and kind of hit me in the chest and I said, ‘Oh man, it’s a big one.’ ”
“Then I looked and I turned and I see the whole building is out in the street and people laying there, and I said, ‘Oh man, this is bad.’ And I looked up and I thought, ‘I got to check above.’”
He saw a girl out on the fire escape, and she could not get the ladder unhooked.
“Me and a couple of other guys were trying to get the drop ladder down for her. It was too heavy. She was panicking. I told her, I said, ‘Honey, you got to calm down and listen to me.’ I said, ‘Bend with your legs and lift it up so it unhooks and then just let it go.’ And she was like, ‘I can’t.’”
He told her she could do it.
“I just kind of instilled confidence in her.”
