20 people hurt, two seriously, in high-rise blaze on NYC’s East 52nd Street

Twenty people were hurt — two of them seriously — in a fire that had residents hanging out of the windows of an East 52nd Street apartment building early Saturday, the FDNY said. 

The three-alarm blaze erupted on the 20th floor at 429 East 52nd St. around 10:30 a.m., officials said.

“It was horrible, there were people hanging out of the window and everything — just terrible,” said one FDNY officer at the scene.

“I ran down all 26 flights of stairs,” Igor Mihailevschi , 63, told The Post. “Everybody was screaming and there was smoke everywhere and I looked out the window and saw someone waving at me to get out.

As thick, black smoke poured out of the building, daring firefighters used a rope to reach windows and rescue multiple frightened residents.

Rescuers helped one woman, her hands and arms apparently blackened with soot, climb out the window. Another person was seen on a stretcher, with an oxygen mask, clutching a small black dog. 

The NYPD aviation unit also checked for residents who may have been trapped on the roof of the 37-story building and the stairwells, the FDNY said.

Hisako Ando, who moved into the building just last year, bolted for safety after looking out her 27th floor window and hearing the sirens.

“Someone from across said, ‘Get the f–k out of the building, there’s a fire,’ she said. “I could see the smoke so I grabbed a mask.”

She also grabbed her beloved wiener pooch Emi, who “was shaking because I put her in a bag to come down the stairs,” Ando said. 

“It was a little stressful and scary going down the stairs while the firefighters were going up the stairs, because we didn’t know what was going on at the time,” said Allie Gold, 26, who has lived with her boyfriend on the 10th floor at Rivercourt for 18 months. “I grabbed my dog that’s literally it.”

Gold’s friend, Samantha Walker, 30, was visiting for the weekend from Washington, DC. 

“We evacuated to the courtyard of the building and glass started breaking from the windows so there was glass coming down and [firefighters] were like, ‘You guys need to go to the back of the building, it’s not safe out here.’”

“I can actually smell the fire from my apartment on 54th st,” tweeted Kiirstyn Marilyn @Kiirstin Marilyn.

Lamented displaced resident Ando: “I don’t know what’s going to happen and if we’ll be able to get back. I’m wondering if I want to stay here now.” 

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The building, known as the Rivercourt, is located between First Avenue and the FDR Drive and has 292 apartments.

Per: NYP