Suzanne Rozdeba More than a week has gone by since a fire blazed through a restaurant on East Sixth Street, and residents who live above it are still without house and home.
“We’ve been sleeping on a friend’s couch on the Upper East Side. It’s still unclear when we’ll be able to move back in,” Paul Canetti, a tenant on the third floor at 507 East Sixth Street, told The Local.
The fire on Jan. 4 occurred around 7:30 a.m. inside 6th Street Kitchen, a restaurant on the first floor. All tenants were evacuated, and the restaurant was destroyed.
“We have clothes, and basic stuff we need at our friend’s place. But we work downtown, so it’s been all around really inconvenient,” said Mr. Canetti, who lives with his girlfriend. “They’ve started cleaning debris, but we still have holes in our walls, and our belongings are covered in soot. The smell is still terrible.”
Another tenant told The Local, “They haven’t done any repair work yet – so broken windows are still covered in plywood, walls are still torn up. We wouldn’t be able to live there under any circumstances.”
Cecilia Salame, the property manager at Mora Management, the building’s management team, told The Local, “At this point, the residents are not allowed to live in the building. Nothing has been done in the apartments because we need the green light from the insurance company. Once they finish inspections, we will be able to start repairs. We want to do it as soon as possible. We are trying to give the residents all the information they need at to avoid more inconvenience.” Ms. Salame added that a cleanup crew has been getting rid of the debris.
As for the future of the restaurant, 6th Street Kitchen, Annie Wang, the restaurant’s publicist, told The Local in an e-mail that it’s “still uncertain. We need more time to figure out the next step. We are lucky to have so many friends and neighbors who have offered to help.” Andrew Kraft, the chef, will be “cooking up a storm” at another city spot, and “is slowly trying to replace the thousands of dollars of knives and tools that were lost in the fire. The fire is only a bittersweet chapter — the future is bright.”
