By Leslie Albrecht and Nicole Bode
DNAinfo Staff
UPPER WEST SIDE — A fire broke out in the massive Dorchester Towers apartment complex on the Upper West Side Wednesday morning, leaving four people with minor injuries, the FDNY said.
Fire department officials said the blaze broke out on the 10th floor of 155 West 68th St. around 10:43 a.m. and was brought under control just after 11:30 a.m. They did not immediately say what caused the fire.
The apartment, which faces out onto Amsterdam Avenue, is one of the 683 units inside the two Dorchester Towers, a pair of apartment towers built by developers Seymour and Paul Milstein. The complex takes up an entire city block, from Broadway to Amsterdam and between West 68th Street to West 69th Streets.
A housekeeper was inside the two-bedroom apartment when the fire broke out, FDNY said. FDNY Division Chief Anthony DeVita said the apartment sustained "medium" damage. "It wasn't a total conflagration, but it was a lot of water and a lot of smoke," DeVita said.
Firefighters evacuated the 10th floor, and told residents on the 12th floor and above to stay put. About 20 units or 75 firefighters responded to the blaze, FDNY said. Two ladders were extended to the 10th floor apartment, where firefighters smashed through windows to reach the fire.
“I was busy reading when a neighbor banged on the door and said that there’s a fire in the building,” said fifth floor resident Dan Bernstein.
Bernstein said he did not smell smoke or hear any fire alarms, but took his neighbor’s advice and exited the building through the stairwell.
Fire alarms aren't required in residential buildings, said FDNY spokesman Steve Ritea. Only hotels, commercial buildings and offices must have audible fire alarms.
One resident on the 28th floor said she became aware of the fire when she saw dark gray smoke drift past her window around 10:30 a.m. When her nanny called from the foot of the building to say she was being blocked from entering because of fire, the woman grabbed her young son and headed for the stairwell.
“We didn’t know if we should continue down or go up because of the smoke. But a firefighter told us to go down,” said the tenant, who declined to give her name.
Another tenant, Jody Muehlegger, said she found out about the blaze when she received an e-mail with the subject line "Emergency" from the building management at 11:03 a.m. The message informed residents of the fire and instructed them to "vacate the building."
Muehlegger, who was working on her laptop computer at a library on West 65th Street, said she raced back to the building expecting to find her husband and 4-month-old daughter outside. Muehlegger said she was shocked when she called her husband, who was inside their apartment on the 3rd floor, and discovered he was unaware of the fire.
"I came running over here expecting to see them outside because they where supposed to quote unquote evacuate the building," Muehlegger said. "I was ticked no alarms had gone off. They had no idea there was a fire in the building."
At 11:10 a.m. Muehlegger received a second message from building management saying that the fire had been extinguished and residents could remain in the building.
Building staff at the scene declined to comment, and emails and a phone call to building management were not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.
