Smoky Fire Causes Evacuation of Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street

Firemen wait to go inside 1 Centre Street following a fire that broke out late Friday afternoon, March 21, on the building's eighth floor. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

A fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street late Friday afternoon, causing the evacuation of 22 floors of the landmark city office building.

Two firefighters sustained minor injuries from the fire, which broke out around 5 p.m. and was declared under control a little more than an hour later, according to a Fire Department spokesman.

“Just finding it was the problem,” said a firefighter who helped extinguish the flames. “There was not much in there, not much going on.”

The fireman said the fire started in an empty office where asbestos abatement was underway. “They’ve got everything sealed up, plywood and plastic and we had to cut through plastic to get to [the fire],” he said.

Evacuees from 1 Centre Street, which includes numerous city agencies and the offices of three elected city officials—the borough president, comptroller and public advocate—stood outside and watched as dozens of firefighters streamed in and out of the building.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who walked down from her 19th floor office, said she was in a meeting when the fire alarm went off. “They said, ‘Everybody has to evacuate,’ and then we could smell smoke,” she recalled. 

Brewer said she had to switch staircases on the way down because she could smell smoke in one of them.

“One stairwell had smoke and the other one did not,” she said. “We’re lucky that there are two.”

Twenty-six FDNY units, totaling 84 firefighters, responded to the fire, according to the Fire Department spokesman. Fire apparatus lined Centre Street for blocks and the street was closed to traffic south of Worth Street.

The fire’s cause is under investigation, the spokesman said.