HARLEM — An East Harlem garden center badly damaged when an explosion destroyed two nearby buildings and killed eight people in 2014 has been hit again — this time by fire.
The blaze underneath the Metro-North viaduct between E. 117th and E. 118th streets Tuesday night ripped through Urban Garden Center's supply storage area.
Garden employees could be seen Wednesday scouring through charred remains to salvage what they could after firefighters extinguished the flames, which filled the streets with smoke and severely disrupted Metro-North train service.
The area was storage for gardening supplies and their office and woodwork shop @DNAinfo pic.twitter.com/BMIf3Oxenn
— Dartunorro D. Clark (@DartDClark) May 18, 2016
The area was used to hold the majority of the business' gardening supplies — including soil and fertilizers — and housed its office files and woodworking shop.
“The backbone of the business got affected… the whole area is shot,” said Nick Gatanas, whose family-owned shop is at E. 116th Street and Park Avenue.
“We’re going to continue our business," he continued, "luckily we can remain open.”
The blaze started at about 6:42 p.m. after construction debris and a trailer caught fire beneath the elevated train tracks. Official said the cause of the fire was accidental and connected to fuel spilling on hot generator during re-fueling.
Gatanas said he has been in contact with their insurance company, but is “not sure how it’s going to work.”
The store, which opened in 2011, was badly damaged when a gas explosion leveled 1644 and 1646 Park Ave., near 116th Street.
At the time, officials said Urban Garden Center was one of four ground-level businesses in the area that were destroyed or badly damaged. Repairs forced it to close for three weeks.
On Wednesday, Metro-North workers also tried to repair damage to its infrastructure. Trains were running on a Saturday schedule.
Engineers were installing six temporary steel columns that will surround a column that was damaged.
MTA workers wielding new support beams. pic.twitter.com/ru6fAwNgXn
— Dartunorro D. Clark (@DartDClark) May 18, 2016
The Metro-North repairs are expected to be completed by Friday.
