By Heather Grossmann and Josh Williams
DNAinfo Reporter/Producers
MIDTOWN — A fire broke out at a commercial building in the heart of the Diamond District Wednesday, forcing residents and workers to evacuate nearby buildings.
Tourists and shoppers gawked as about a dozen fire trucks arrived to fight the blaze at 21 W. 45th Street after it erupted on the sixth floor just before 2:56 p.m.
The building houses several jewelry shops and a cache of diamonds. One shop worker grabbed a suitcase with the store's most precious stones before evacuating the building.
The fire appeared to have started in the rafters of the sixth floor because of an electrical malfunction, according to a firefighter on the scene.
A man who did not wish to identify himself said that the building's super had been working on a ceiling pipe on the sixth floor and that may have sparked the fire. He also speculated that the oxygen tanks and welding supplies used to make jewelery in the building may have contributed to the blaze.
The fire has been extinguished and people are being let back into the building.
