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Karate Championship Hopes Dashed After Bushwick Fire Destroys Dojo

By Trevor Kapp | March 30, 2016 5:36pm
 Hommy Pena, 43, lost his dojo in the Tuesday night's DeKalb Avenue fire.
Hommy Pena, 43, lost his dojo in the Tuesday night's DeKalb Avenue fire.
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DNAinfo/Trevor Kapp

BUSHWICK — Karate instructor Hommy Pena spent the weekend in Las Vegas, helping six of his students from the Kanku-dai Dojo on DeKalb Avenue win 15 medals at the USA Open championships.

They returned to Brooklyn Tuesday morning and were back in the gym at 1427 DeKalb Ave. in Bushwick, working on their kicks and blocks by 5 p.m.

“We finished the last class at 9 o’clock last night,” Pena, 43, said. “We cleaned the dojo and pulled down the gate.”

About 30 minutes later, a massive fire ripped through the building, near Knickerbocker Avenue. Eleven people were injured and the dojo Pena has poured five years of his life into was destroyed.

“Everything’s gone,” he said Wednesday afternoon, fighting back tears as he stared at his charred-out gym.

 Hommy Pena's students won 15 medals at the USA Open karate championships in Last Vegas last weekend.
Hommy Pena's students won 15 medals at the USA Open karate championships in Last Vegas last weekend.
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Hommy Pena

Fire marshals were working to determine the cause of the blaze, which took more than three hours to bring under control. At least 15 families were left homeless, officials said.

Pena said he opened the dojo in hopes of keeping neighborhood kids, mostly between 10 and 16 years old, away from gangs.

He had just a handful of students when he first opened, but now has more than 80, many of them from blocks near the fire scene.

He was planning to take several to the national championships in Pennsylvania this summer — but that’s now in doubt.

“We have no place to continue training,” he said. “It’s very sad.”