Queens, N.Y.-- A raging third-alarm fire ripped through a row of stores in the Corona section of Queens, halting subway service. Eyewitness News has learned the blaze tore through the stores on Roosevelt Avenue, near 104th Street, just before 2:30 a.m.
Heavy flames shot out of the businesses, described as a restaurant, a coffee shop, well-known "Ysa" bakery, travel agency, barbershop and a gift shop. As many as eight stores were heavily damaged.
One couples store was spared, barely.
Store Owner: "I feel very bad for the people and this situation because in this neighborhood, we are all one, everybody together. So you feel sorry for them."
The building had been under the same owner since 1955 and he says some of his tenants had been with him for 40 years.
Ralph Iaello, Building Owner: "I smelled the smoke in my house and I got up to see if my house was burning. Then I got a call from the fire department that one of the stores was on fire but they're all gone."
Smoke poured up to the elevated No. 7 line, temporarily halting service between the Woodside-61st Street and Flushing-Main Street stations.
Three firefighters were being treated for minor injuries.
At noontime state fire marshals were still on the scene investigating the cause of the fire but they say it definitely was not suspicious.
Copyright 2006 WABC-TV.
Republished with permission of WABC-TV>
