Fire!!

A beautiful old industrial wreck of a building went up in HUGE flames this morning, right outside my window: a fire that burned all day and went from a 9-alarm fire to 10-alarm (80 units!) this afternoon, after going all morning. The sunset was impressive, and even now (2AM) there is a cloud of white smoke rising - the firefighters have lit up the area as they continue working.

This fire is on a plot of land that's due to be developed into this.

I feel sick. The owner, Joshua Guttman, has had other buildings of his burn down under similar odd circumstances. A rumor was floting about the Gothamist that a meeting had been scheduled for tonight to discuss granting the Greenpoint Terminal Warehouse landmark status, which I think it deserved. World's largest rope factory in the late 19th century! Other rumors (including a woman on the street today - I do get out occasionally) say that they already had a demolition permit, but burning is cheaper - and gets them out of disposing of toxic industrial waste properly.

I hope they get Guttman for this. More futilely, I hope the development doesn't happen and they turn it into public waterfront access - there's far too little of that in this neighborhood.

I regret never going inside when wandering about those warehouses (a bit afraid of the squatters, I was). The photos from inside look even more fascinating & intruiging than the arial walkways and wreckage on the outside. If I'd know it wasn't going to last... but nothing does, in New York. Nevermind, I'm being a silly industrial wasteland romantic. It's much better to put it to good use, like housing for all the homeless haute bohemians who are so *over* SoHo already.

Sorry for the late post, all my dear non-readers - my wireless card is being fussy tonight

Update: 36 hours later, the wreckage is still smoking. This morning the wind was such that you smelled the smoke walking to the L - I was thankful that it turned by the evening.

Roommate Michelle has a Fireman Friend (Rob), who was at the fire all of yesterday. He's quite sure it was arson. Apparently the firetrucks kept overheating, so they'd have to take breaks - and then the fire would rear up again and make their progress moot.

meant to blog this:

Jane Jacobs died last week (April 25th). The Death and Life of Great American Cities is one of the books I read as a young'un sitting around my dad's office that stuck with me far more than any book I'm liable to read nowadays. One of the books that explained how the world is and how it should be. Such books don't exist anymore, due to this silly critical thinking habit I've picked up - I mean 'silly' somewhat facetiously, but I do end up arguing the devil's advocate against authors more often than I'd like.

(different topic: how to cure devil's advocatism?)

Voila, a segue - last Friday I saw Lawrence Lessig speak at NYU. He's a good speaker, with a brilliant & mesmerizing slide technique - you can see the presentation he gave here. It was inspiring, in the sense of a call to arms, although he didn't offer a clean solution (there never is one, is there) - as well as frustrating, because they put him on a panel with two other lawyer types who managed not to understand a word he said. One went so far as to disbelieve the existence of frivolous lawsuits and the undermining of fair use.

As a good blogger I should have some interesting (critical...) thoughts on all this. But, I agree with Lessig, without his articulateness, so just watch his talk already. His final point, that less-free&fair use rights end up undermining youth's respect for the law, and contribute to the general collapse of society, is extremely powerful, in that it connects to many other points of contension (marijuana legalization, gay marriage, etc.). Just about everyone I know has knowingly broken a law at some point or other, and depending on the executive to turn a blind eye seems like a unsustainable situation - especially considering today's political situation and the consolidation of powers in the White House.

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