Bayside fire victims get support

A week after a three-alarm fire gutted a Bell Boulevard business and several apartments in the building above; one resident in the torched apartments has said that neighbors and friends have offered an outpouring of support.
&#8220When anyone in New York needs a little help, we are always here for one another,” said Nestor Murdocca, whose apartment at the back of Gateaux Bakery was partially destroyed. &#8220I would really need a big book to write all the offers that I had [for places to stay], even from Toronto, Canada.”
In Murdocca's apartment, the walls and ceilings in two bedrooms were destroyed, and a week later, Murdocca can see patches of sunlight through the walls. A thick layer of debris lines the floor - pieces of the ceiling, papers, singed clothing, and insulation - and the stench of smoke and burning is thick in the two burned rooms.
&#8220At this point we do not know what will be in the future, if it will be condemned, if it can be renovated,” said Murdocca.
In the four apartments above Paradise Bedding Dinettes & Furniture, where the Fire Department believes the blaze originated, residents - their faces covered with surgical masks - dug through the rubble, trying to salvage any usable possession from the mass of torched debris on Friday, August 25.
&#8220There were a lot of people who lived there for a very long time and they lost everything,” said Stacey Bancone, 35, who was house sitting for her cousin who lived on the third-floor of the torched building when the fire broke out last week. &#8220Unfortunately my cousin and her mother lost their home.”
For Murdocca, the cleaning alone will cost over $1,000, he estimated, but he said that he was luckier than his neighbors in terms of damage.
Murdocca, who is staying in his daughter's apartment while she teaches high school English in Arizona, said that he had gone into bed to watch TV a few minutes before the fire was first reported.
&#8220I don't want to miss the show Frasier,” Murdocca said, explaining that he heard a loud bang and noise outside. &#8220I thought it could be the air conditioner,” he said, but when he walked over to the wall, he saw smoke coming from the bottom corner of the air conditioner.
And outside, he heard yelling from firefighters, &#8220Move the ladder, move the ladder.”
Rushing down the flight of stairs to the parking lot behind the buildings, Murdocca twisted his ankle, but outside he immediately started to search for neighbors to make sure that they had escaped from the blaze.
&#8220It was an inferno,” he said, saying that he spotted two women, long-time friend, Cheryl Moffson, and Sue Myerjack, the manager of First Edition, pounding on the side door of the buildings to make sure that both he and the other residents had escaped.
Outside the fire, Murdocca also saw Bancone, and learned that she had jumped down onto a series of roofs - from the third-floor apartment window above the furniture store.
After hearing broken glass, Bancone had first thought that a robber was trying to enter the apartment, but when she went to the front window, she spotted flames and rushed to the back room with her 14-year-old cat, Mushy.
Bancone said that Matt Olsziewski, a fire fighter from Bayside's Engine 320 had gone inside the burning apartment to search for her cat and belonging, but could not find her pet.
&#8220I'm very grateful to [Olsziewski] and very grateful to the neighbors who were concerned about me even though they had lost their homes,” Bancone said a few days after the fire. Bancone suffered a torn ligament but no broken bones from the multi-story escape. &#8220I was very lucky that so many people were there for me that night.
On the ground, Bancone also had hobbled over to Murdocca to apologize for breaking his flowerpots in her escape from the fire.
&#8220As long as you are alright, I will let you break every one of them,” Murdocca told her.