[Photo courtesy of sgoralnick on flickr]
It's not your imagination. The spectacular (allegedly accidental) torching of the Greenpoint Terminal Market is just one of a bunch of suspicious Brooklyn bonfires. New York reports that the Uniformed Firefighters Association says the 2006 “fire season” (the winter months when there are more fires) saw 50 percent more two-alarm or worse fires than the record year 2005:
The market blaze was only one of the many, many “suspicious” fires to hit the Brooklyn development zones of late. Within three months, from December 7, 2005, to February 24, 2006, there were eleven such fires along Prospect Heights’ “Pacific Street Corridor,” formerly home to single-story factories and flat-fix establishments but now part of the realty zone sandwiched between the escalating rent sprawl of Williamsburg and Fort Greene and the proposed Atlantic Yards megaproject to the West.Development-related or weird coincidence? You be the judge.
· Brooklyn is Burning [New York]
· Do Arson and Development Go Hand in Hand? [Brownstoner]