A fire broke out in a restaurant kitchen on Feb. 12, and by the time 168 firefighters tamed it two and a half hours later, a decade’s worth of Kingsbridge Road businesses had gone up in smoke.

From a deep fryer in Crown Fried Chicken, the fire spread to its three closest neighbors on East Kingsbridge Road between Morris and Creston avenues – Vicky’s Coffee Shop, Kingsbridge Grocery, and finally, to a fruit stand owned by Chuljae Kim, as reported by The New York Times.

Doyle Whiteman, the manager of C&S Value Store, directly across the street from the fire, said he hopes the owners would be able to rebuild.

“Either way it’s a loss,” he said. “Vicky’s diner was my breakfast every morning – actually, it was breakfast for the whole block.”

The fruit stand was also very important to people in the neighborhood, Whiteman said. Residents and businesses along Creston Avenue in both directions would come and buy groceries there at reasonable prices rather than trek further west down Kingsbridge Road.

Juan Fitch, who lives up the block on Creston Avenue, smelled the smoke coming right in through his window when he was getting out of the shower, before he even heard the fire engines.

“I was amazed,” Whiteman said, about the fire itself. “I shed a little tear that morning. All those businesses, except for the diner, were here before me, and I’ve been here 12 years.” Beyond the goods they sell, the businesses had become “little icons in the neighborhood.”

There was nothing special about this fire, firefighters from Ladder Company 37 said after shopping for food on the street later in the week, just a combination of factors that left behind the charred remains.

The day was windy, which only fed the flames, one said. And the fire had already reached the ceiling of the chicken shop by the time they arrived. As is typical of this type of structure, called a “taxpayer,” once the fire climbed above the first restaurant, there was no firewall to keep it from ripping through the shared ceiling space above all four venues.
Yndira Garcia, of Natural Life Nutrition Center, two doors down from the blaze, watched the fire from across the street at Rodriguez Barber Shop where she was keeping warm since the electricity had been shut off in her store.

Garcia said that Kingsbridge Fish, the one business between the fire and hers, was worse off, but was already opened for business again as of Monday, Feb. 19. But the New Way Newsstand, to the right of the fire, its awning melted where it had been licked by the flames, was still closed as employees sifted through wet plaster and ruined goods.