I was happliy watching “High School Musical” for the third time this summer (working at a teen magazine has a tendency to make you yearn for the Disney Channel) when I heard a faint alarm from the hallway. Not thinking much of it–this IS New York City, after all–I continued watching the teens belting it out cheesy songs on my computer. Then my roommate Dana, who had been talking on the phone in the hallway, storms in screaming, “We have to evacuate the building! There’s a fire!”
Oh. No. Caren was just getting out of the shower and was still brushing her hair in her towel when she heard the news.
“There’s no way I’m going down there,” Caren said.
“Caren, you have to! There’s a fire!” Dana screamed.
So Caren got dressed, I paused my movie and we ran down 16(!) flights of stairs to the lobby, where we ran into Smith (the cheesecake-giving night guard) who pushed us out of the building and told us to hurry up and get out.
As soon as we got outside where the rest of the building had gathered, we watched four fire trucks pull up, and the FDNY got out and assessed the situation. It was only a tiny fire in the basement, and many of the FDNY (including one calendar-worthy hunk) hung out by the trucks as we waited to go back in the building.
A building on fire and super-cute firemen coming to save the day. Does this happen anywhere but New York?
