Bronx businesses try to rebound from devastating fire – New York Daily News

Jessica Betancourt is a fighter: When looters and demonstrators protesting George Floyd’s death damaged her Bronx optical shop in 2020, she was back in business three weeks later.

Now, she says there’s no coming back from a devastating fire that tore through her shop and neighboring stores and restaurants Thursday along a block-long stretch of Morris Heights — and ripped the heart out of a proud community dependent on its small business entrepreneurship.

“We were in the [Floyd] protests going on,” Betancourt, 42, recalled.”So that was the beginning of 2020. We picked up three weeks later. We were able to [keep going], but now it’s impossible.”

Her Bronx Optical Center, on Burnside Ave., is covered by insurance like the other five businesses that were wiped out by the blaze. But that’s where the similarities end.

The optical center has a satellite shop three stops away on the No. 4 train in Kingsbridge, where staff and patients can go in the meantime.

Not so for Casa Mofongo, a popular Dominican Restaurant, that lost everything in the fire.

“Casa Mofongo had 32 staff members,” Betancourt said. “I don’t know what they’re gonna do.”

Betancourt, who lives in Fort Lee, N.J., said she got a call about the fire around 8:15 a.m. and managed to make it to the Bronx in about 12 minutes, despite the rush hour traffic.

“I saw everything unfold,” she said. “ I’ve never seen in my life such a collaboration from FDNY, the New York City management, MTA, the precinct, local officials.”

There were 200 firefighters in all, not enough to save her business.

It didn’t help that a selfish motorist parked next to a nearby fire hydrant, briefly delaying firefighters upon their arrival.

By then, smoke was billowing above the roofs, and firefighters had to leave the buildings and attack the blaze from the outside when ceilings started caving in.

“I saw smoke all over,” Betancourt said. “I was sick, and I’m even more sick now. Because I didn’t want to leave. But you know what? it was my choice to be here.

“Today hit me hard,” she said. “Yesterday I was strong. But today I broke down because I saw the reality of everyone being together. It’s just like this is the reality I’m facing right now. And knowing the fact that now this is going to be demolished, It’s like I’m not gonna be in this community. I’m not gonna come to Burnside and service the patients and give back to the community here. We’ll continue in Kingsbridge, but it’s still hurtful. I’d get my coffee in the morning in the deli. It’s not there anymore.”

The good news is that everyone was insured, and nobody got injured. But that doesn’t mean that the neighborhood isn’t hurting.

“I don’t know where we’re going to go from here,” said Sandra Betterson, 64, a local resident. “I pray that they survive.”

Betterson said she has lived in the area since she was 9 years old. She is part of a group of locals and business owners who were trying to form a Business Improvement District for the Burnside, Jerome and Tremont area.

“We were putting the budget together,” Betterson said. “We already identified what we needed to do, what we wanted to do. Our goals were set and it was time to do the logistical stuff, and do the budget. We might have to rethink that now.”

Betterson said she is trying to find the silver lining.

“God works in mysterious ways,” she said. “How do you get the community involved? Does it take a fire? We want to rebuild. Does it take a fire to make that happen? How do you make the community aware of what they have right in front of them as opportunities? Folks are walking by and pausing, like ‘where am I gonna get my lunch?’ They take it for granted.”

Rene Tapia, 39, the owner of Total Wireless, a cellphone store on Jerome Ave., said a customer called to tell him about the fire when he was on his way to the Bronx from his New Jersey home.

“One of my customers, a frequent customer, called, and said, ‘There’s a fire in your store,” Tapia said. “I was in traffic on the George Washington Bridge. I couldn’t do anything.”

What he will do now, he said, is move his staff and customers to his other store in the Bronx.

“I’m going to put a sign here to redirect those customers to the other business,” he said.

Bronx Assembly member Yudelka Tapia said a fund is being created to help the businesses while they are waiting on their insurance checks.

“That’s a concern that every owner has. Their employees need the jobs,” Tapia said. ”But we’re working on it. This is going to take a couple years. Everything is going to have to be rebuilt.

“It’s devastating what has happened here. These businesses that were thriving, they’re gonna have to start all over again, and our communities are gonna be missing them. It is completely devastating how these owners, after working so hard, had to leave everything behind.”