Queens Boulevard 46th Street Sunnyside After June 2001 Fire

This was the scene at the corner of westbound Queens Boulevard and 46th Street in Sunnyside, Queens, New York, two days after a rip-roaring blaze disintegrated a row of businesses. It began in a Korean restaurant around 5AM on 6/1/2001 and included a new Irish pub among its victims. Luckily, nobody was killed and firefighters kept the blaze from spreading to the apartment houses next door.
As the charred wall of one building testifies to, however, there were certainly some anxious moments and all residents were hastily evacuated. For all that was destroyed in the massive blaze, wouldn't you know a handful of plates and a pot would survive.
This crane's operator must have been hard pressed to even know where to begin. I could never do that job; I'm too much of a procrastinator.
At least at that moment its likely that nobody faced getting jaywalking tickets crossing 46th against the light, because 46th is still closed off here. The cops might be protecting the plates and pot from being looted.
red areaRed Area? Well, this certainly was a red area! Blazing red and orange and believe me, the fire engines definitely violated the 4 hour parking limit. The wind must have kept the flames away from the front side of the apartment house fronting on 46th Street, but it positively roasted the rear outer wall.
At least one newspaper vending box knows where to hide in order to keep from getting hit by vehicles. The north facing Colossi of Pedestrian-Was-Killed-Here-Non warning signs stand guard over the site, mute witnesses to one of the more interesting blazes in Queens history. If they were gloating about buildings being killed here too, they should have looked a decade into the future, because they too died sometime around 2013.
Restaurants, Sunnyside up! The scene of The Big Blaze as seen from the elevated IRT 7-Train 46th Street platform. They used to call this Bliss Street. Now they'll call it Blaze Street. The fire engine below must be heartily sick of this site already. With the new multi-story building going up a block away and the rapidly rising land values in Sunnyside even then let alone almost two decades later as I update this in 2018, you'd have expected new construction at this spot to dramatically change the landscape. Well, think again if you did, because the only thing that replaced the fire victims was a new single story taxpayer that as of 2017 housed a T-Mobile store and a Starbucks Coffee Shop. Incredibly, even that never filled the entire void. A couple of stores worth of empty space remains unbuilt in the middle of the block, walled off with an ugly wood fence. If anyone cares, the green awninged storefront that survived the blaze at the 47th Street end of the block now has a red awning. Don't let my focus on an awning set you to yawning now.
The cops are either protecting the site, or watching for jaywalkers, as back in 2001 this was still very much the Boulevard of Death, although for one fine June 2001 morning, it was more like the Boulevard of Hearth.