Empanada Mama Goes Up In Flames

Thanks to a boiler, a popular eatery at 763 Ninth Ave and the apartment building it housed are destroyed. The four-alarm fire broke out Sunday at 8 a.m. and destroyed Empanada Mama on 9th Ave between 51st and 52nd Streets and completely gutted the building. “There was smoke that seemed to be coming out of the boiler room. A few minutes went by and smoke came billowing out from the stairs. My fear was the boiler was going to explode,” stated assistant manager Stuart Bragg. Bragg started hitting the buzzers of residents in the four-story building so everyone could get out safely. “People were asleep and they smelled smoke.”

Firefighters struggled to put out the blaze at a Hell’s Kitchen restaurant after encountering a snow-covered fire hydrant.

Thanks to Bragg no injuries were reported.

The building next door which included a Pay-O-Matic was also damanged.