West Village Fire Ravages Top-Floor Duplex of 'Harbor House' Building

WEST VILLAGE, NY — A three-alarm fire tore through an expensive top-story duplex in the luxury Harbor House apartment building at 130 Jane St., a tree-lined and cobblestoned street in Manhattan's West Village neighborhood, for more than two hours late Wednesday night as temperatures dropped into the low 40s.

The fire broke out on the fifth and sixth floors of the six-story building around 11:20 pm. Wednesday, and had passed three alarms by the time it was declared "under control" around 1:30 a.m., according to city officials.

More than 100 firefighters from 25 units rushed to the West Village to fight the blaze, a spokesman for the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) told Patch.

No injuries were reported at the scene, the spokesman said.

However, the Jane Street fire caused heavy "smoke and traffic delays in the area" Wednesday night into Thursday morning, according to an alert sent out by NYC's official emergency notification system.

City officials advised nearby residents to close their windows to shut out the smoke.

steer clear of jane st there's a fire/emergency 1 blk frm me doesn't sound good lots of fire engines hope everyone is ok#westvillage#nyc
— Leigh Ferreira (@leighleighsf) October 27, 2016

According to the real-estate listing site StreetEasy, at least two separate duplexes fill out the top two floors of the West Village Harbor House.

One is a two-bedroom, $7,000-per-month "renovated loft style duplex" with sweeping views of the Hudson River and "a modern kitchen, high ceilings, spiral staircase, 7-foot windows, exposed brick, hardwood floors, and a private roof deck," according to its listing on StreetEasy.

Another is a four-and-a-half-bedroom home worth around $2 million.

The Harbor House was built at the turn of the 20th century, and served as a paper warehouse until it was divided into apartments in the 1970s, according to StreetEasy. The building now comes with a part-time doorman, an elevator, a bike room and a live-in super.

One Twitter user pointed out Thursday morning that TV commentator Rachel Maddow bought two combined units on the fourth floor of 130 Jane St. — one floor below Wednesday's fire — from the lead singer of R.E.M. for $1.25 million back in 2010.

At the time, when the Curbed New York real-estate blog published details on Maddow's new digs, she told New York Magazine: "Whoever at Curbed decided the actual address and floor plan was necessary to get those page views, I hope they die in a fire.”

Footage via AJ Kintner/Twitter