Thick, black smoke nearly blotted out the morning sun as flames tore through a popular Old City hangout, The Five Spot.
Officials were not reporting any injuries as a result of flames that broke out at about 9:30 a.m. at Third and Bank streets, near Market Street. The business has a downstairs restaurant and upstairs dance club.
"We were just trying to figure out what was going on, and you could see all of this smoke coming up the back of the building," said one witness. "It was bad. It was really bad."
The fire in the historic section of the city quickly went to four alarms and took about two hours to bring under control.
"I just saw a lot of smoke, heard a lot of sirens, and I thought, 'Oh, they're just going by. Nothing happened.' I didn't think it could happen here, but they were here," said Laura Dunning, one of eight people evacuated from an adjacent building as a precaution.
"It looks bad. It's been a couple of hours. I thought it would have been done by now," she said.
Investigators said the fire was so intense and the smoke was so thick that, at first, firefighters couldn't even get inside the building.
"The fire did indeed tear through the building, enough to cause a collapse of the building," said Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers. "So, that means it took the systems -- the flooring systems, the wall systems and the roofing systems."
"It's shocking," said one woman who was a securty guard at The Five Spot and came to see the damage for herself. "...It's a hurtful situation because we're like a family there."
Investigators said it appeared the fire began on the first floor. But, whatever the cause, officials said The Five Spot was beyond repair, NBC 10's Byron Scott reported.
The guard was hopeful it would be back, saying: "They'll probably do it again. I'll work for them if they would."
