A three-alarm fire ripped through a row of stores this morning near the corner of East 14th Street and Avenue A, authorities said.
The fire began at 10:15 a.m.at 509 East 14th St., although the cause was not immediately known, fire officials said.
Essa Assabahi, 29, who works at Stuyvesant Convenience, watched from across the street as the shop burned.
“That’s my job right there,” he said. “Now I’m unemployed.”
The flames shot up from the roof and sent thick black clouds of smoke across a part of the East Village, tying up traffic and forcing people to cover their mouths as they tried to cross nearby streets.
Assabahi said he saw smoke seeping out of the ceiling at 10:20 a.m.
“I knew not to mess around with it,” he said
After a futile attempt with a fire extinguisher to try and put out the fire, he and three of his co-workers ran outside.
Adal Murshed, 35, who was also in the store at the time, said, “A customer ran in and said, ‘Get the heck out.’ Then we started to see smoke and we just ran out.”
Assabahi and the others called 911. Moments later, the entire store was ablaze.
The fire reached three alarms about 45 minutes later and it took nearly 140 firefighters to douse the flames, fire officials said.
Two firefighters was treated for smoke inhalation, officials said.
Numan Hauter, 50, whose father owned the convenience store for 20 years, called the blaze “a nightmare.”
“What can you do?” he said.