From 2000 to 2002, the cold-storage warehouse was converted into an office and commercial building by the Berlin architect Reinhard Müller.
Mr. Cruz said it was too dangerous for firefighters to enter the cold-storage warehouse or attack the blaze from the roof.
In 1937 the Department of Markets announced that it was giving up on the older cold-storage warehouse.
Although the building was then fully occupied, the maintenance costs were high, and the cold-storage warehouse had never generated more than $65,000 a year in rent.
The former cold-storage warehouse, between 16th and 17th Streets, looms over a gritty section of the Hudson waterfront.
Once a cold-storage warehouse, the building had its own spur track from the High Line, which has now been severed.
The Hamm's depot was one of six such cold-storage warehouses on DeMers Avenue in 1909.
Her father was a prominent businessman in New Orleans, at one time owner of the first cold-storage warehouse in the city.
The eight-acre property of Connecticut Freezer, a cold-storage warehouse, has been optioned by the developers.
Its stark simplicity underscores the sensation that we might almost be watching a Shakespeare comedy unfolding in a cold-storage warehouse (2:00).