Still Smoking

The major fire in Greenpoint, Brooklyn continues to smoulder as firefighters enter the second day of battling the largest non 9/11 related fire event in the city since 1995. Seven warehouses that have been pending demolition were involved, and officials are calling the fire suspicious. Expect the investigators to find that arson was involved, considering the speed and ferocity of the fire.

The speed of the blaze and the fact that it started just before dawn in abandoned buildings led investigators to suspect arson, said Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. The buildings were owned by Joshua Guttman, of Lawrence, N.Y., a real estate developer with a history of buying commercial properties and turning them into condominiums.

A lawyer for Mr. Guttman, Joseph Kosofsky, said the developer had no idea how the fire began. "It's the last thing in the world we need right now," he said. "He's a very substantial guy. If someone set fire to it, it could have been squatters, it could have been anybody. How in the hell can you watch 21 acres of industrial property?"

The fire area is a belt of formerly industrial, historic waterfront properties that are turning, one block at a time, into condominiums and apartments, bringing the young and affluent to the neighborhood. Mr. Guttman had acquired demolition permits for 4 of his 10 sites in the area and filed preliminary requests for 6 more on Monday, said Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Buildings.

The change in the neighborhood's population could be seen in the faces on the sidewalks staring up at the flames: old Polish women, young couples with their digital cameras, knots of Hasidic men. Everywhere there were firefighters, climbing into or out of their gear, and police officers. Blocks surrounding the fire were closed to cars and pedestrians. The fire stalled traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive in Manhattan as drivers slowed for a look.

Wisps of the light grey smoke could be seen as far away as New Jersey as I entered the City this morning.

Some of the buildings date back to the 1890s and were used in ropemaking, which could help explain how the fire grew so quickly.

UPDATE:
Was it arson? Quite possibly. The NY Daily News reports that investigators poring through the site have discovered accelerants in various parts of the destroyed building complex.

The developer who owns the buildings involved denies any wrongdoing or involvment in the blaze.