Fire Breaks Out At Chelsea Art Gallery, FDNY Says

CHELSEA, NY — A fire ignited the second story of a Chelsea building home to several art galleries Tuesday morning. The blaze broke out inside the Paula Cooper Gallery on 521 West 21st Street's top floor just after 11:30 a.m., a FDNY spokesman said.

Four galleries reside within the brick building between 10th and 11th avenues including the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, the Kravets Wehby Gallery and the Alison Blickle art gallery. It took firefighters more than an hour to extinguished the flames, which may have been sparked by electrical equipment, said an FDNY spokesman. Fire marshals are still investigating the blaze and will make a final determination.

Gallery workers were seen removing damp items after the fire, one worker described.

"We didn't have any damage forutuantly but other people were carrying out wet furniture and trying to figure out what had happened," said a woman who answered the phone at the ground-floor Kravets Wehby Gallery. "I hope the damage wasn't too bad. Everyone was up and running this morning."

It is unclear if art was damaged during the blaze.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock / WUTTISAK