Rockefeller Center Rocked By Explosion Restaurant Fire, Pushed Through Air Ducts, Causes Top-Floor Blast
A fire erupted Thursday night in the kitchen of a restaurant in Rockefeller Center, injuring several people, hurling gas and smoke 33 stories up through the ducts and causing a minor explosion in a top-floor equipment room, Fire Department officials said.
The fire in TGI Friday’s restaurant in the Time-Warner Building at 75 Rockefeller Plaza broke out just after 7 p.m. and prompted an evacuation of the restaurant that put a temporary blight on the holiday moods of more than 100 customers.
The top-floor explosion was preceded by a rumbling sound, apparently from the gas and smoke that raced up the ducts. The blast was in an unoccupied area and caused no injuries. But it produced a noise that reverberated like thunder and spewed thick black smoke from the top of the building, Chief Edward Butler said.
“The building was shaking,” Neesa Hart, 19, of Fredericksburg, Va., said. “It sounded like an earthquake or a train. It calmed down, and then there was an explosion and then chaos. People were shoving to get down the stairs.”
Outside, as fire trucks arrived, the restaurant patrons mingled with shoppers and onlookers drawn by the newly lighted Christmas tree next to the building.
Betty Worden of Richmond, Va., was eating dinner with her family and had gone outside to smoke a cigarette when the fire started. “It sounded like a gunshot first,” Worden said. “The two hostesses came running out and said, ‘It sounds like an explosion.’ There were tremendous amounts of black smoke.”
From an early count, it appeared that seven people were hurt, according to Butler, the citywide tour commander for the Fire Department, and Zachary Goldfarb, division commander for Emergency Medical Services. Two people were hospitalized with burns. Four others suffered minor unspecified injuries, and a police officer sprained an ankle in the confusion, according to officials.
Butler said that there was no serious damage to the building.