Sign in window of Good Footing Adventure Sunday morning (written on the front of a file folder): Closed Due to Water Damage.
Indeed, passerby’s are still browsing the window (gates and all) eyeing sport shoes by Merrell, Dansko, Mephisto and Blundstone shoes. But the store, as the sign says, remains closed.
The sign, of course, refers to water damage suffered Friday afternoon at 196 Seventh Avenue during a fierce roof fire that was put out in 16 minutes by local FDNY.
Water damage incurred by the FDNY’s efforts to put out the fierce blaze, however, resulted in damage to Good Footing and two apartments upstairs. One is a duplex apartment. The other is an apartment rented by a young woman. I spoke to her boyfriend outside the building where he was standing with a coeterie of packed black suitcases.
He said the apartment was uninhabitable. His girlfriend does not have renter’s insurance and she has to move out for the time being. She stayed in a hotel the night of the fire.
He didn’t know anything about the tenants who occupy two of the building’s floors. The landlord, he said, has been away. He wasn’t sure when he was coming back.
The cause of the fire has not been released by the FDNY.