This story has been updated with information provided by the university in an email Monday evening.
Students and faculty evacuated a Parsons building when an electrical fire that sent arcs of electricity flying through the basement filled it with smoke Monday morning, witnesses and officials said.
The electrical fire erupted in the basement of 2 W. 13th St. after 10 a.m. April 2, officials said.
“It sounded like someone on the floor above you drilling concrete and it just kept getting louder and louder,” said Jonathan Pandolfi, a Parsons instructor who was teaching a ceramics course in the basement at the time.
“Then the lights started flickering, and when I was hearing it, I was scared for my life because it was electrical arcing [visible discharge of electric current],” he said. “We couldn’t hear the alarms, we could just hear the arcing. We ran out the easternmost fire exit.”
Classes in the building, at both 2 W. 13th St. and 66 Fifth Ave. have been canceled for the rest of the day.
An email sent Monday evening stated that the 2 West 13th Street, 66 Fifth Avenue and 68 Fifth Avenue buildings will be closed on Tuesday April 3rd, 2018. All classes that were scheduled to take place in the affected buildings have been moved.
No students were injured, according to a spokesperson for The New School. Two firefighters were treated for minor injuries, FDNY officials said.
Switches in the electrical room had caught fire, causing the incident FDNY Deputy Chief Robert Carroll said on the scene.
A spokesperson for The New School said that they “believe the damage was significant.”
Firefighters had to wait for Con Ed to turn off the power, then checked carbon monoxide levels throughout the building, Carroll said.
A spokesperson for Con Ed, the electric and gas provider for New York City, said the fire department asked them to turn off the power.
“The fire was on the building side. It is not involving our equipment. It is internal,” said a Con Ed spokesperson.
Students and faculty in the building said announcements were hard to understand.
“In our room, we couldn’t understand the words of the announcement, but the sirens made it very clear,” said Harvest Henderson, a Parsons first year seminar instructor who was teaching a class on the seventh floor.
“I was in class and I heard the announcement. It was really scary, I didn’t know what it was at first, and then I smelled smoke,” said Clio Galea, an 18-year-old fashion student.
Galea said the announcement was hard to hear, but her class could hear instructions to evacuate the building.
Students who left behind belongings when evacuated from 2 W. 13th St. have been asked to report to the UC lobby to be escorted to retrieve their property, according to university emails.
Photo by Orlando Mendiola. Reporting contributed by Toma Volozhanina.
