This week’s New York Magazine revisits the role that “accidental” fires play in a city’s (in this case Brooklyn’s) regenerative evolution. As the article reminds, last summer’s 10-alarm blaze that destroyed the Greenpoint Terminal Market was only the tip of the iceberg: the 2006 “fire season” saw a 50% rise in the number of two-alarm-and-higher fires over 2005, which itself had been a record. Is itjust coincidence that the real estate market was setting new highs both years? Particularly suspicious, according to the article, were the eleven fires in the Prospect Heights “Pacific Street Corridor” between December 7, 2005 and February 24, 2006. Atlantic Yards, anyone?
Brooklyn Is Burning [New York Magazine]