FDNY firefighters battled a fire at the abandoned Water’s Edge restaurant in Long Island City on Tuesday night. The FDNY received a call of a fire on the roof of the dilapidated former restaurant at 4-01 44th Dr. at 9:30 p.m. and dispatched 12 units with 60 firefighters and EMS personnel to the scene between 5th Street and Vernon Boulevard.
The blaze was brought under control at 10:09 p.m. There were no reported injuries, and FDNY fire marshals will determine the cause of the fire.
The 2-story shuttered restaurant, which sits atop a barge in the East River, was a destination for diners who wanted to take in sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline and the East River since it first opened in 1983. Two years later, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley had their wedding reception at the Water’s Edge. It hosted countless weddings, birthday parties and political fundraisers, and the property had a pier where private yachts could dock.
In 2008, restaurateur and philanthropist Harenda Singh and his Singh Hospitality Group acquired the restaurant, but by the early 2010s, Singh had financial difficulties and owed the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in back rent on the Water’s Edge barge lease.
Singh was arrested in September 2015 on federal corruption charges in Nassau County, unrelated to the Water’s Edge, which abruptly closed down.
The Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) evicted the Water’s Edge in 2020 and put the barge up for auction in 2022. The rusting structure has remained at the site.
QNS reached out to DCAS and is awaiting a response. Before Tuesday night’s fire, the FDNY battled another blaze in the structure in October 2023.
