Merchants feel heat of lost business from downtown fire

[ Originally published on: Thursday, November 12, 2009 ]

Recorder/Paul Franz

A crane and Dumpsters sit at 29 Chapman St. in Greenfield on Wednesday, ready for today's scheduled demolition of the top floor of the four-story building after Sunday's fire.

GREENFIELD -- Some merchants lost a day or two of business and others expressed fear that they might lose more as a result of the fire that devastated the Deland Building on Chapman Street and left 21 homeless on Sunday.

Kevin O'Neil, president of Wilson's Depart-ment Store, said that he was coming out of church on Federal Street Sunday morning when he saw the plume of smoke rising over the center of town right where his store sits.

'I came rushing up here, but, of course, half the streets were blocked off,' he said.

As it turned out, Wilson's itself was not on fire, but the building next door was fully engulfed in flames.

When he finally made it inside the store, the president of Wilson's said that he could smell smoke at the north end of the building. &

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