Fire guts dental office and apartments on Moyamensing Avenue
UPDATE: Speaking of fires, Teri’s bar in the Italian Market was also damaged Friday. Check out Philly.com’s little story here.
A fire tore through the building on the corner of Moyamensing Avenue and Morris Street Wednesday night, gutting a dentist office and the four apartment located on the second floor.
According to the Fire Department, the fire started in the first-floor office of Dentex Dental Group around 10:15 p.m. and spread throughout the building. All occupants were removed and no injuries were reported, but it was clearly a scary scene. “Tons of smoke damage, soot everywhere,” a resident of one of the second floor apartments told us via email. “All the second floor windows were broken in. A total mess.”
Firefighters arrived on the scene to find the place enveloped in “medium smoke,” according to the report. The fire was under control by 10:33 p.m. and cleaning crews were on the scene Thursday afternoon to board up the property. One of the men working on the property mentioned that the interior was “destroyed.”
Moyamensing Avenue and Morris Street has been an unlucky corner the past few years. Abigail Vare Elementary School was shuttered in 2013. Later that year, Jamie Rodriguez broke into the dentist office to steal a bunch of high-priced stuff. More recently, shots were fired at the basketball court in Dickinson Square Park this past spring. That shooting took place in broad daylight and left one person injured but caused quite a stir as news choppers and police helicopter flew over the neighborhood.
No injuries were reported from Wednesday’s fire, but the building looks to be in some rough shape.
– James Jennings is the founder of the blog Pennsporter — a site dedicated to exploring the neighborhood from Washington to Snyder, the Delaware to Fourth.
