In an eerie coincidence, fires have broken out in two different spots on the same Lower East Side block this month. On Jan. 7, Claudette Rivera, 72, died after her clothes caught fire as she was trying to keep warm by the heat of her stovetop burners in her first-floor apartment at 124 Ludlow St. near Rivington St., near left. Last Thursday at 8:11 p.m., a blaze struck at The Three Monkeys, a restaurant on the ground floor of 99 Rivington St. at the corner of Ludlow St. The fire was under control in a half-hour and the cause was under investigation.
