Blaze damages Whitestone Shopping Center stores

A weekend fire at the Whitestone Shopping Center gutted the neighborhood-favorite Lollipops Diner recently, apparently racing along the storefront awning to damage every establishment in the south bank of stores.
The fire, first reported at 1:05 a.m. on Sunday, November 2, was declared under control by fire officials at 2:37 a.m. Two of the storefronts in that section of the shopping center, located alongside the Cross Island Parkway between Clintonville and 154th Streets, were vacant.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation, according to a spokesperson for the Fire Department.
Apparently, flames blew out the front windows of the diner and were contained under the constructed awning. The structure funneled the flames which “spread very, very fast,” according to a fire officer surveying the damage.
“Whatever they built this out of, they shouldn’t use it again,” the officer was overheard telling the owner of an adjacent store, who stood staring at his boarded-up premises.
College Point resident Rocco D’Erasmo, who has operated NY Digital Printing just two doors from the ill-fated diner for 19 years, was resolute as he emerged from the blackened interior of his business.
“We’ll open as soon as we possibly can,” D’Eramso declared, conceding that it would “probably be a couple of months.”
At the southern end of the damaged section, the Chase Bank and its neighbor, Astoria Federal, were open for business on Monday, November 3, although glass workers were still in the process of installing replacement windows and electricians had not finished wiring temporary lights on the charred remains of the awning.
Other merchants could only watch and wonder. Michelle Park sat in Anemone’s Floral Design at the far end of the complex and pondered. “It’s good that nobody was hurt, but now I’m afraid for my business,” she said upon learning of how fast the fire spread.
An elderly couple that declined to give their names said they would miss the Lollipops diner. “We went there all the time. I guess we’ll go to Bay Terrace to eat now,” the woman said.
“But where will we get our tickets” she asked, waving two passes to a tour bus headed for Atlantic City. “He sold the tickets to go gambling,” she said.
At that moment, the bus arrived and they were off, in the hope that the tickets were luckier for the buyers than they were for the seller.