By Alexander Dworkowitz
Late Saturday afternoon a two-alarm fire ripped through the Whitestone home of Morris Ginsberg, burning a hole in the roof, knocking out windows and leaving its owner with burns to his face and hands.
But Ginsberg, 57, described himself as a lucky man.
“As you get older, you start to put things in proper perspective,” Ginsberg said Monday, after several days of not getting any sleep.
It took dozens of firefighters to put out the blaze at the two-story frame and brick home at 162-49 13th Ave. that roused a quiet residential block Saturday. Although the fire was thought to have started in the basement, fire officials said they had not determined what caused it.
Ginsberg was upstairs when he smelled the smoke, he recalled. At first he had not realized the extent of the fire and wanted to go downstairs and put it out with a hose. But the heat quickly intensified, and Ginsberg escaped through the back door and into the rain.
Although he did not run through the fire, the heat in his home was so strong that it burned several parts of his body, causing him to seek treatment afterwards.
“I didn’t even see flames,” Ginsberg said. Pointing at the marks on his face, he added, “This was just heat.”
Ginsberg moved from Kansas to the 13th Avenue house in 1949 and grew up there. Hand impressions he made with his parents are faintly visible in concrete poured around the house, which Ginsberg said was full of memories.
The commercial financing broker has spent the days since the fire at the homes of various friends. Ginsberg said the structural integrity of the building was intact, and he hoped to repair it and return.
But the house was uninsured, and Ginsberg was unsure whether or not he could afford such repairs.
“It ain’t going to be easy,” he said.
As firefighters inspected the damage to the home Monday afternoon, Ginsberg watched intently.
“It could have been a lot worse, it could have been a lot better,” he said.
Reach reporter Alexander Dworkowitz by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 141.
