By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UNION SQUARE — The FDNY quickly extinguished a small fire in the Union Square subway station after the smell of smoke filled 14th Street Tuesday afternoon.
An air-conditioning unit in the station caught fire shortly before 2:30 p.m., and 60 firefighters and more than a dozen police officers responded, an FDNY spokesman said.
Firefighters cordoned off a portion of the mezzanine of the busy station, near the stairs leading down to the NQRW platforms. By 2:45 p.m., it appeared that the fire was out, though water still gushed from a pipe in the station’s ceiling.
No injuries were reported as of 3 p.m., an FDNY spokesman said.
Most straphangers rushed past the scene of the fire without looking twice, but one woman said the chaos convinced her to take a bus instead.
William Cruzado, 45, of Brooklyn, was walking through Union Square with is friend when he saw smoke hovering over the east side of the park.
“I was worried,” he said. “And the first thing I think: terrorist attack.”
