Fire At Artichoke Pizza Devastates East Village Spot

EAST VILLAGE, MANHATTAN — A fire that broke out Friday morning at Artichoke Pizza in the East Village devastated the establishment and displaced some tenants who lived upstairs.

The FDNY said the fire broke out around 5:15 a.m., it it was declared under control about an hour later, after extending to the second and third floors of the mixed-use building.

An FDNY spokesman said the fire was "in the walls" of the building and didn't immediately have information on the extent of the damage. Multiple tenants who lived in the building above the pizza parlor were displaced by the early-morning fire. Authorities were not immediately able to provide an estimate to Patch of how many tenants were forced to leave. Officials on the scene allowed residents to re-enter the building to take some belongings with them.

On Friday morning, groups of residents were milling about on the sidewalk in pajamas while fire department investigators reviewed the scene. One resident, who lived directly above Artichoke Pizza, told Patch that she saw smoke coming inside her apartment from the kitchen window sometime after 5 a.m., which prompted her to wake her roommates and evacuate the building. She said firefighters had smashed the glass in her apartment's windows, along with other windows on the lower levels of the building, to clear the structure of smoke.

This is a developing story and will be updated. For the latest updates — and other East Village news — click here to sign up for Patch's daily newsletter and free, real-time news alerts. Or download the free Patch app for iPhone here.

Images and reporting by Ciara McCarthy