Two years after a nearby gas explosion destroyed the store in Manhattan’s Spanish Harlem, Urban Garden Center had a four-alarm fire that disrupted a popular train route, and the garden retailer is now dealing with an angry community.
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Urban Garden Center front entrance
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Void where a building used to be
Construction is still underway to both repair the buildings damaged in the blast and to rebuild those destroyed. The wall you can see on the right edge of this photo is part of Urban Garden Center's entrance.
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Location of building blast in 2014
The view beyond the fence should not be so open. Two buildings used to be in that space.
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Lingering damage from the blast
Other than the extensive preparations going on, it's difficult to see any damage at Urban Garden Center today. This scorched mantel is one small reminder.
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Chickens at Urban Garden Center
The New York Timeswrote an article about how a rooster saved the lives of two Urban Garden Center employees. Sadly, the store was forced to removed the rooster when a neighbor complained about early morning crowing.
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Urban Garden Center is under Metro North track
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View of Urban Garden Center from the entrance
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Inside the greenhouse
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Greenhouse entrance
The main structure under the girder is a small greenhouse, which has been given warmth from the wood exterior.
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Kokodama display
A popular trend the past couple of years, especially in urban areas, has been making miniature gardens with moss-covered clay balls, or kokodama.
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Honoring the family's Greek-American heritage,
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View of the second lot, which is currently a staging area.
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El Boar-Rio room
Once Urban Garden Center has completed its renovations, El Boar-Rio will reopen. This is where many gatherings take place, especially food-related events. The store has two large smokers and a serving area. At the time this photo was taken, it was where all the power tools were being used for construction.
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Street tree products display
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Soil Bar at Urban Garden Center
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Roof top gardens are a big part of urban life.
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Dimitri Gatanas
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Dimitri and Calliope Gatanas
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Dimitir's mother, Calliope Gatanas featured in a book on the history of the neighborhood.
The family has deep roots in the neighborhood.
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Urban Garden Center front entrance
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Void where a building used to be
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Location of building blast in 2014
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Lingering damage from the blast
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Chickens at Urban Garden Center
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Urban Garden Center is under Metro North track
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View of Urban Garden Center from the entrance
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Inside the greenhouse
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Greenhouse entrance
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Kokodama display
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Honoring the family's Greek-American heritage,
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View of the second lot, which is currently a staging area.
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El Boar-Rio room
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Street tree products display
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Soil Bar at Urban Garden Center
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Roof top gardens are a big part of urban life.
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Dimitri Gatanas
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Dimitri and Calliope Gatanas
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Dimitir's mother, Calliope Gatanas featured in a book on the history of the neighborhood.
Urban Garden Center is in a unique location. It leases space beneath the elevated train tracks that run along Park Avenue. Although it leases two blocks of space, the lots are divided by a cross street. The southern lot hosts the retail garden center, and the north lot is currently the staging and storage area. Only the garden center has electricity. Owner Dimitri Gatanas has relied on generators to operate machinery and heat the greenhouse in the second lot.
And that’s where the fire broke out, according the New York Times. An employee was refueling a generator that was still hot, sparking the fire. It quickly grew into a four-alarm fire and shut down service to the popular Metro North train route, a major transportation artery into the city.
As a result, the community is questioning why Urban Garden Center is allowed to operate generators or store fuel. The city’s fire department has cited the garden center for four violations, reports Politico New York. The article itself demonstrates just how much pressure Gatanas is under. It quotes New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo, who says the fire got so hot it popped bolts from the supporting girders for the train line.
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Urban Garden Center was demolished when a gas explosion brought down two nearby buildings.
Two years ago, the garden retail portion of the business was destroyed when a gas explosion brought down two buildings directly across the street. Eight people inside the buildings were killed. Because of the train tracks, only one lane of traffic runs along either side of Urban Garden Center, and the explosion was within feet of the garden center. Two Urban Garden Center employees were spared when they walked to the north lot to retrieve scissors. A rooster had been thrown over the store’s fence (the garden center has a chicken coop), and the workers were unable to untangle the bird.
Remarkably, not only were the employees’ lives spared, but the rooster survived, too.
We visited Urban Garden Center to see how its rebuilding was coming along one year after the explosion. This year’s fire has not impacted the garden center, and it is operating normally.
Here’s what Urban Garden Center looked like last year:
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015Manhattan's Urban Garden Center Suffers Second Disaster In Two Years