‘Rock!’ star dies
SCORES OF firefighters raced to put out a massive fire that tore through a row of stores in the Bronx Tuesday, authorities said.
The flames sparked inside a shuttered Chinese restaurant on E. 194th St. near Marion Ave. in Fordham Manor about 5:20 a.m. and quickly spread to six adjoining shops, fire officials said.
By 7:30 a.m. the blistering blaze reached a fifth alarm, meaning that 198 firefighters were on scene.
The fire was under control about 9:20 a.m. — four hours after it started.
“The whole place was filled with smoke — you couldn’t see nothing,” said Balgrim Boodram, the building superintendent. “I have no idea what started it.”
The fire was so intense, it was unsafe for firefighters to go inside, sources said.
Flames consumed the Fu Wang Chinese Restaurant, a corner laundromat, a pizza parlor and a barber shop, and scorched parts of Compare Foods supermarket, authorities said.
The row of stores was part of the lifeblood of the neighborhood.
“We buy food here, we got laundry, we got medication — we go (to the) barbershop, he cuts my hair,” said Boodram, 52. “Now we’ve gotta go somewhere else.”
“It hurts,” said Barry Chalmers, 58. “This is the only place that some people have to shop at. Hopefully it wasn’t intentional, maybe something will come from it — urban renewal maybe.”
Two firefighters minor injuries. suffered BOB DOROUGH’s function was teaching generations of children history, civics and even grammar by penning songs like “I’m Just a Bill,” “Three Is a Magic Number” and “Conjunction Junction” for the hit cartoon show “Schoolhouse Rock!”
The accomplished jazz musician, who played with legends like Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, died Monday in Mount Bethel, Pa. He was 94.
The Arkansas-born Dorough (photo) kicked off his career playing in his high school band and later, in an Army special services band unit as an arranger, clarinetist, saxophonist and pianist.
It wasn’t until 1971 that Dorough’s legacy would be cemented.
That was that year he was enlisted by an advertising executive, whose son was struggling with math, to set the multiplication tables to music.
The result paved the way to “Schoolhouse Rock!”
“It was designed to educate,” Dorough said. “But I attempted to write songs that would entertain anyone, from ages 2 to 92.”