Wreckage (photo by Jaime Cone)
Police arrested five people in connection with the gas explosion that rocked Second Avenue last spring and brought down three buildings. The tragedy, which killed two men, seriously injured 13 people and obliterated hundreds of peoples’ homes, is said to have been caused by an illegal gas hookup guarded in a secret room in the basement of the building’s sushi restaurant, locked and inaccessible to restaurant workers or ConEd inspectors.