Work Underway to Repair Fire Damage in Tribeca's Independence Plaza

As a two-alarm fire tore through the fifth-floor hallway of 310 Greenwich Street [1] in Tribeca’s Independence Plaza on Sunday night, 78-year-old Anthony Compoccia took refuge on his balcony, listened to firefighters’ directions and tried to keep calm.

“I was sitting on the sofa, and all of a sudden this horrible black smoke was coming in from the top of my door, coming in with a vengeance,” Compoccia said. “I went on my terrace and called 911….The firemen came up to me [and] said,  ‘Stay on your terrace. You’ll die if you go in your apartment.’”

“I expected to get a heart attack or something,” he added. “I just took a tranquilizer and stayed on the terrace and everything was OK. The firefighters congratulated me that I pulled through.”

Aside from some soot and smoke, Compoccia’s apartment was undamaged, and he said he has been able to live there without a problem.

As of Thursday evening, all fifth-floor tenants had returned to their apartments, according to Diane Lapson, the president of the Independence Plaza Tenants Association. The tenants were allowed inside on Sunday night once firefighters gave the all-clear, but some relocated elsewhere for a while, she said.

According to Eddie Jasavic, a building superintendent who has been helping to oversee the cleanup effort, there was little or no damage to those apartments.

The fifth-floor hallway, though, was a different story. The fire left the walls charred and blistered, the doors broken by firefighters and the air thick with a chemical-like burning smell. Work has been ongoing all week to restore the floor.

“We cleaned all the dust from the fire, we removed the carpet, we removed all the big ground molding,” Jasavic said.

All apartment doors have already been replaced on the fifth floor, according to Compoccia.

Management is also placing air scrubbers throughout the entire building to reduce the chemical burning smell, Lapson said.

“I think this is their priority, cleaning up after the fire and taking care of any smell of smoke,” Lapson said, adding that it’s been determined that elevated carbon dioxide levels are now normal.

“It’s going to take some time to get through the entire building,” she added. “They are diligently trying to clean up.”

Selma Figuero, 86, a sixth-floor tenant, called the night of the fire “terrible,” but she said things have quickly gotten back to normal in the building.

“I think that they’re doing a good job, because you hear them all during the day trying to clean up,” Figuero said. “Everything is all right now and the building is quiet and peaceful.”

Fire officials said the blaze, which resulted in minor injuries to eight people, including one firefighter, and sent smoke throughout the 37-story building, was being investigated as suspicious. No cause has yet been determined, according to an FDNY spokeswoman.