More about arson as an insurance or redevelopment strategem

Tyrone Dukes for The New York Times. A four-alarm blaze on East 105th Street. The fires that mattered, the author says, were usually set during the winter.

The City section of the New York Times (online only through Saturday) has this article, "The Fires Last Time," about growing up in the Bronx in the 1970s. From the article:

I LIKED it when it had just snowed because it hid what was underneath. The piles and piles of uncollected trash, the vacant lots that resembled pastures sprinkled with government powdered milk. I couldn't see the charred bricks, the junked furniture, the dirty diapers or anything that lay waste atop the rubble.

See my blog entry about Anacostia, "Arson as a(nother) redevelopment strategem".

Paul Hosefros/The New York Times. Shooting hoops and fighting the flames near upper First Avenue in the 1970's.


Index Keywords: urban-revitalization