NEW YORK -- A fire that tore through a store on the first floor of an Upper East Side apartment building injured 33 people Thursday morning, including 19 firefighters, officials said.

Residents of the 34-story building at 200 E. 72nd St. were evacuated around 5:30 a.m., a short time after a blaze broke out on the first-floor of the building, the fire department said.

Two firefighters were seriously hurt, but the rest of the injuries were minor, fire officials said.

Reported shortly after 5 a.m., the blaze was visible in a newsstand and stationery store at 72nd Street and Third Avenue, said Rusty Pacheco, a principal in Grace's Marketplace next door.

"The moment we heard the alarm next door and we saw the flames go up, we got out of the building because we didn't know what was going on," he said. His staff was unhurt, but the specialty food store suffered some water damage, he said.

The phone rang unanswered at the stationery store Thursday morning.

Some 138 firefighters tackled the blaze and Third Avenue was closed between East 70th and East 73rd streets, officials said. The fire was under control by about 6:30 a.m.

Its cause wasn't immediately known.