Several Herald Square Holiday Market vendor booths destroyed by fire
By Allen Devlin
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NEW YORK (WCBS) — A fire ripped through vendors’ booths at the Herald Square Holiday Market on Monday, charring the holiday spirit of more than a dozen small businesses and sending a firefighter to the hospital.
Parts of the 34th Street and 35th Street sections of the market were able to open as normal Monday afternoon. UrbanSpace said it was working as fast as possible to restore the damaged 36th Street section.
There is no clear timeline on when, or if, the impacted booths will reopen. It’s also unknown what started the fire as the scene was left a barren and blackened mess.
The injured firefighter is expected to be OK, officials said.
“It was just completely gone” Kelli Lipson, one of the many vendors who lost everything right at the height of the shopping season, lamented the unfortunate situation.
“I was a little shaken up when I saw that, to be honest with you,” Lipson said.
Lipson’s season ended when the fire leveled her Spoonable Spirits booth.
“I originally thought that I would see where I was set up, and like some things inside my stall would be burnt, but, unfortunately, it was just completely gone,” Lipson said.
The only distinguishable piece left was the charred remains of her refrigerator.
“I think that was just hard to realize that this market is over for me,” Lipson said. “This is not how I saw my holiday season. This is not how a lot of vendors saw it.”
Lipson’s booth was one of many destroyed on 36th Street.
“It’s completely devastating to our vendors and to UrbanSpace,” director of marketing Linda Aguilerra said. “It’s one of those things where we’re stronger together, so we are really just trying to get through this for each other.”
Andrea Albayeros’ booth one street over off of 35th survived the fire, but was without power earlier Monday.
“I was just worried, hopefully thinking that everything would be OK,” Albayeros said.
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