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| Screen capture of video by Joe Chan via Facebook.
NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio was in Chinatown this afternoon to examine the extent of the fire damage at 70 Mulberry Street with NYC Council Member, Margaret Chin and NY State Assembly Member, Yuh-Line-Niou.
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Officials at New York City's Museum of Chinese in America told NBC News Friday they the fire that tore through a building in Chinatown may have destroyed as many as 85,000 irreplaceable pieces stored in the building.
“This is literally a pillar to the community. A painful moment on the eve of a joyous celebration,” the Mayor Bill DeBlasio said, referring to the Lunar New Year. “This is a horrible blow to the community, there is still fire operations going on. Once those are concluded the buildings department will go in again to establish whether the building is safe enough for people to enter and get their possessions out.”
He called 70 Mulberry Street a “beautiful historic building,” which is owned by the city.
“We will restore it. The city is committed in bringing this building back to life,” the Mayor said.
“One hundred percent of the museum’s collection, other than what is on view,” was stored in the building said Nancy Yao Maasbach, the president of the museum. She said that the collection was one of a kind and that she was “just distraught” after receiving the news.
The city will work quickly within the next two days with the organizations that were located in the community center, to find them other city owned sites so they may continue their work.
The organizations that called the community center their home were, Chinese American Planning Council, Chinatown Manpower Project, Chen and Dancers, Museum of Chinese in America and the United East Athletics Association.
Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro, said the fire started on the fourth floor on the Bayard Street side of the building and is still under investigation. When asked about the 59- year old -hospitalized man who is still in the hospital, Nigro said there are still unknown reasons as to why he was in the building and what his relation is to being there.
Councilmember Chin said seniors relied on the Chinatown Planning Center’s senior center for possibly the only meal of the day and now they will need to find a meal another way.
One of the concessions for the new jail that is slated to built just a block away was to build an elevator in the community center, which the Mayor said he will still do.
The people in the community are saddened to see that the roof has burned through and the thought of the archives that are housed there by the Museum of Chinese in America that that took many decades to collect may be damaged or completely gone is just heartbreaking. The archives are immensely priceless to community as it exhibits the Chinese immigration experience and the history of Chinatown.
With the start of the Lunar New Year tomorrow, the celebrations will take place despite Mulberry and Bayard Streets being closed by the fire.
One of the concessions for the new jail that is slated to built just a block away was to build an elevator in the community center, which the Mayor said he will still do.
The people in the community are saddened to see that the roof has burned through and the thought of the archives that are housed there by the Museum of Chinese in America that that took many decades to collect may be damaged or completely gone is just heartbreaking. The archives are immensely priceless to community as it exhibits the Chinese immigration experience and the history of Chinatown.
With the start of the Lunar New Year tomorrow, the celebrations will take place despite Mulberry and Bayard Streets being closed by the fire.
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