July 28, 1986 If you forget about the wind and the water, the shattered glass, the fire and the missing child, things went pretty smoothly yesterday at the opening of the new wing of the Smith Haven Mall.
On the day the mall celebrated the opening of a new wing containing 14 stores and a complex of fast-food restaurants, a violent thunderstorm flooded the mall’s corridors, old and new, inundating the entranceways of several stores; a plate glass window at the Sears, Roebuck and Co. store was shattered by the wind, injuring several people; and a fire broke out at one of the new restaurants.
“This has been the worst day in the 12 years I’ve been here,” Abe Zitren, the mall’s general manager, told a security guard. The 82,000-square-foot wing dedicated yesterday will feature 41 new stores when it is completed within a few months.
About 10,000 people were on hand for the morning dedication ceremonies, which mall officials said came off without incident, except that a mob of fans chasing Gary Carter, the New York Mets catcher, frightened Zitren into hiding in an empty store.
About 2 p.m., the Centereach and Nesconset fire departments were called when a small fire broke out beneath a pizza oven at the newly renovated Sbarro’s Restaurant. Jerry Sbarro, son of Anthony Sbarro, the company president, said a wooden frame the oven rested on had caught fire, causing minor damage.
In late afternoon, security guards said they located an 11-year-old girl who had been missing for two hours and returned her to her parents.
Then at about 4 p.m. the thunderstorm hit the mall area, causing storm sewers to back up and numerous leaks to spring out in the roof. Several hallways were flooded, including the one leading to the new wing.
“Welcome to New York,” Ed Dikun, a transplanted Philadephian who is managing the new Foot Locker athletic apparel store, said as two of his workers used push brooms to keep water from his door. “We still have construction guys in our storeroom and now this happens. This place wasn’t ready to open.” He said the store had been extremely busy until the storm hit. He and employees pushed a planter over a nearby storm sewer that was spouting water like a small geyser.
At Sears, a large plate glass window panel above one of the entrances was blown out by the force of the wind and rain. “I was standing there by the door at Sears when the glass shattered,” shopper George Liebla of Kings Park said. “People were screaming.” Four persons injured by flying glass were treated at Community Hospital of Western Suffolk.
At the mall entrance to Sears, four workmen were using brooms and mops to push water into nearby sunken planters as the storm sewers spouted water. Intermittent power failures kept lights in the new restaurant section flickering.
“It looks like the Poseidon Adventure,” a mall employee said, as she skirted one of the large puddles in the mall’s main corridor.
(Copyright Newsday Inc., 1986)
Be First to Comment