February 2005
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Fire wrecks mainstay S. Amboy deli, routs
tenants A smoky blaze destroyed a popular South Amboy delicatessen yesterday and burned an adjacent apartment building and newly opened restaurant, forcing nine tenants into the early morning cold. Ninety firefighters from four towns battled the blaze, which started in the rear of the Olde Town Deli and Liquor store at 138 South Broadway, said city Fire Chief Tim Walczak. The fire was reported at 12:31 a.m. when a passerby saw the smoke, Walczak said. Firefighters initially entered the first-floor store and a second-floor window to search the apartments, but were forced out when the fire burned through the roof, the chief said. No one was in the apartments, which were being renovated. ‘‘Ten minutes after we got here, the back (of the building) just lit up. The fire escalated very fast. It went out of control,’’ Walczak said. Police arriving at the scene evacuated residents in apartments at 134 South Broadway. ‘‘I was sleeping. Police came banging on the door,’’ said Emil Pawlowski, who was staying in his girlfriend’s apartment. Once outside the building, ‘‘smoke was everywhere. You couldn’t see anything,’’ Pawlowski said as he returned to remove clothing and other property from the damaged apartment. At least two other nearby homes were evacuated, and the fire drew a small crowd of other neighborhood residents. ‘‘The smoke was so high and so bad, you couldn’t see anything but the lights on the trucks and cars,’’ said South Broadway resident Kathy Hyer. One firefighter was treated at the scene for debris that fell into his eye, but there were no other injuries, Walczak said. Firefighters from the city, East Brunswick, Old Bridge, Perth Amboy and Sayreville fought the blaze. City construction official Thomas Kelly determined the building housing the delicatessen and liquor store was unsafe and must be torn down, South Amboy Mayor John O’Leary said yesterday. He said investigators believe the fire started accidentally. The apartment building is attached to Sciortino’s restaurant at South Broadway and John Street. The restaurant recently relocated to the city from its longtime location in Perth Amboy, when the city condemned the property to make way for a public safety complex. The eatery was closed yesterday because of water damage, Walczak said. Edeyta Karpowicz, one of the owners of the apartment building, said the apartments were renovated last year. ‘‘It was completely new. New electrical, new plumbing, new roof,’’ Karpowicz said. Displaced tenants moved in with friends or relatives, or were relocated by the Red Cross, Karpowicz said. Olde Time Deli was a daily mainstay of the neighborhood. ‘‘Kids come there for breakfast before school and come there after school for their snacks,’’ said Cindy Santiago, who has a 16-year-old son, Tim Zeller. ‘‘My son said they made the best sandwiches.’’
 Photo: Joe McLaughlin/The Home News Tribune
Keasbey Kitchen Fire Officials are investigating a structure fire that left a home on Crows Mill Road in Keasbey heavily damaged. Police believe the fire, which started around 3 p.m. Friday, originated in the kitchen. A resident of the home told police he put vegetable oil in a pan to make french fries, then left the kitchen to find a shirt. When he returned to the kitchen about 15 minutes later, a fire had already started over the stove, police said. The victim shut off the stove and threw milk on the fire, and that made it worse, police said. He attempted to find a phone to call for help, but the phone was broken. The victim then fled the house and knocked on several doors before finding a neighbor to call 911. Police are still investigating the cause of the fire. Avenel Trailer Home
Destroyed A trailer home on Jay Street in Avenel was destroyed by fire Saturday afternoon. According to police, the owner smelled a burning odor around 2 p.m. He went to the rear of his trailer, where he saw the electrical box had shorted, and there had been a fire. The victim left his residence and returned to find the Avenel Fire Department extinguishing a fire. Officials are investigating the cause of the fire. Spotswood Fire Damages
Home and Garage, Kills Dog Firefighters from four towns battled a blaze in Spotswood yesterday that started in a breezeway and spread through a single-story borough home and a garage, damaging the house authorities said. Nobody was home at 51 Landvale Road, where a neighbor reported the blaze at 10:45 a.m., borough Fire Chief Jason Michaels said. No one was injured, but a pet dog died in the fire, borough Police Chief Karl Martin said. It appeared the fire started accidentally, he said. The fire burned the breezeway, garage and kitchen Michaels said. Firefighters from the borough, as well as Helmetta, Monroe and Old Bridge extinguished the blaze.
History burns bright at firehouse
museum The imposing brick structure at the corner of Remsen Avenue and Suydam Street once housed the Raritan Engine Fire Company. But now the shuttered firehouse is a portal to the past.Those who climb the narrow, sloped steps to the building's second floor are greeted with the relics of New Brunswick's firefighting history. Photographs of historic blazes and the men who fought them plaster the walls of the former firehouse's lounge and meeting room. Obsolete equipment sits in display cases and tucked into corners. The artifacts constitute the city's firefighting museum. And while it's perhaps not New Brunswick's most well-known attraction, it remains a touchstone and a source of pride for the city's Fire Department. A visit to the museum is an unofficial requirement for the department's new recruits, and Deputy Chief William Bradley is often the one leading the tour. "You have to know where you've been to know where you're going," Bradley explains. As the department's resident history buff, Bradley likes to point out the ways firefighting has remained essentially unchanged over the years. "Since the beginning, we still use the same thing to put out fires: water," Bradley said. "There are different things we can use, but water is the most economical. It cools the fire." And while technological advances may have altered aspects of the trade, Bradley notes that some tools of a firefighter are timeless. The helmets displayed in the museum are the same shape and of the same hard leather material as those worn by current firefighters, Bradley says. And the stack of log books piled on a museum table, which chronicle the department's attendance and incidents back to the 1800s, contain much of the same information as today's logs. The museum also features obsolete equipment, such as the pewter call horns fire chiefs used before the advent of walkie-talkies to direct firefighters at the scene. A red call box that once stood on the corner of Edgebrook Road and Lansing Place is also displayed in the museum. It is one of the 490 call boxes that once dotted the city, replaced by the 911 system. The call box is hooked to an alarm system and Bradley activates it to demonstrate the patterned alarm that would ring at all the department's firehouses, indicating the location of the call box. The museum's most prized item is perhaps the miniature working model of a steam engine, hand built by former Fire Chief John Banker and presented to the department in 1922. The museum also houses a remnant of the department's more recent, and painful, past a scrapbook dedicated to fallen Deputy Fire Chief James D'heron, who died in September saving 15 lives at a house fire. The book, which contains laminated newspaper articles and Mass cards for D'heron, is watched over by the portrait of the department's first professional firefighter killed in the line of duty James Gilhooley, who died in February 1960. The museum was founded in 1984, three years after the Raritan firehouse was closed. Artifacts have trickled in over the years from a variety of sources handed down from the department's generations or unearthed from the basements of retired firefighters. "We never throw anything out," Bradley said. "We're pack rats." Bradley is one of the museum's caretakers and, in tending to its exhibits, he's noticed the ways that history repeats itself. For example, New Brunswick's first and last paid fire chiefs Harry J. Francis and Francis J. Harry serve as bookends to a chapter in the department's history in both title and name. Another example is the striking resemblance between the department's group photographs taken in 1939 and 1996. The pose and camera angle of the 1939 portrait was intentionally mimicked, Bradley explains, in a nod to tradition. "We firefighters are very traditionalistic," Bradley says more than once. Tours of the museum are by appointment and can be scheduled by calling the department's headquarters at (732) 745-5169.
Woman in ‘ critical ’ after cooking fire
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