Grand Street Fire: Demolition and Relocation
And the demolition continues on Grand Street. As of yesterday evening, a sizable chunk of number 283 is gone. The facade is now just a skeleton. In the meantime, families displaced by the fire are upset by the recent relocation from Skyline Hotel on 49th Street.
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The Daily News reports that more than one hundred people were transferred to hotels in Harlem, and one by LaGuardia Airport.
“This is too far from Chinatown,” fumed Ting Chen, 22, outside the Holiday Inn LaGuardia Airport. “Now it’s going to be forever to get to the subway station. … We just want a shelter or a house where we can stay and not keep moving.”
Chen, an interpreter who worked out of her apartment, was one of a number of residents who expressed fears that the tumult will cost her her livelihood. “I don’t know about my job,” Chen said. “I work at home, but my home was destroyed.”
Wing Wong Li, 46, wondered how two of his children will cope with the longer commute to school. “My children go to school in Manhattan, so every day it will take one hour longer at least,” said Li, who had lived at 283 Grand St.
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