Firefighters are still working around the clock to put out the seven-alarm fire that torched a massive Williamsburg warehouse on Saturday morning. When ANIMAL visited the building late Tuesday afternoon, it looked more like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude than a CitiStorage facility that once housed six million cubic feet of medical records and other city agency documents. But make no mistake — while water shot from hoses left towering icicles, “we are still active on the scene,” an FDNY spokesperson told ANIMAL. “It’s still smoldering.”
One firefighter on the scene said that the building will be knocked down on Wednesday, and feared that as a result the fire could get worse. Cernesto, a New York City-based street artist whose studio is in an adjacent building, said that the building was being evacuated. The building has lost power and multiple windows have been blown out.
The fire has raised several public health concerns: activists say the Health Department was too slow to warn local residents about smoke inhalation, while local officials will have to answer for why they relied on paper records in an era of digital technology. Meanwhile, locals are advised to stay indoors and keep windows shut.
(Photos: Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork)
