A grand reopening is marking one year since a devastating fire destroyed a strip of businesses in University Heights.<\/p>\n
It was one year ago today when a five-alarm fire tore through several storefronts along Jerome Avenue and West Burnside Avenue, destroying six businesses.<\/p>\n
Now, one of those businesses is back.<\/p>\n
For Jessica Betancourt, owner of Bronx Optical Center, the day she reopened her store is a dream come true.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch an overwhelming positive experience here to come back home and see every patient telling me, \u2018We were waiting for you,\u2019\u201d Betancourt said.<\/p>\n
Betancourt said she watched in disbelief as flames consumed the business she had run for seven years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just went to the floor and started crying,\u201d she said. \u201cMy whole life \u2014 I saw it in one minute going down the drain.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the help of the community and local leaders, Betancourt was able to reopen her optical shop just one block away from its original location.<\/p>\n
She said the rebuilding process was long and difficult, but worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t see the end of the construction, but wow,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
No repairs have been made yet at the original row of storefronts that burned down. However, some displaced businesses are staying in the area. A phone store that was destroyed has relocated across the street, and a nearby bodega recently received a license to open another storefront on the block.<\/p>\n
Betancourt said she is grateful to be back serving the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought that I would be standing here one year later,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m very grateful. I\u2019m very blessed to have this beautiful space here for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says she hopes more customers will return now that they see the store has reopened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A grand reopening is marking one year since a devastating fire destroyed a strip of businesses in University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,19985,67222,9,24,63,67223,129,131,130,11308],"class_list":["post-163053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-business-fire","tag-jerome-avenue","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-reopening","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-university-heights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}