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Firefighters are still working to put out the huge ten-alarm Brooklyn warehouse fire that started yesterday at 5:30AM. Fifteen buildings the Greenpoint Terminal Market were hit by the fire. The Fire Department used eight to nine million gallons of water during their work, and since there was no "immediate threat to life," the fire became a sort of clinic for the department to "plan strategy," according to the NY Times; the FDNY also used the "surround and down" tactic, with tower ladders on the streets and fireboats in the water. Of course, the fire's scale drew comparisons to September 11, especially with the burnt, acrid smell creeping across the Brooklyn and the rest of the city. Fourteen firefighters suffered minor injuries, with no civilians injured.
As the smoke starts clearing, there are just more questions. Fire Department Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta called the fire "suspicious," while Mayor Bloomberg said that it did seem suspicious but that they wouldn't "prejudge" the situation. However, that's not stopping anyone else. As mentioned in our post yesterday, the land is owned by developer Joshua Guttman, who wanted to turn the area into a commercial-and-residential area (see plans here at designers Perkins Eastman). However, since one of Guttman's properties in Dumbo burned down "suspiciously" two years ago (though Guttman was cleared and cooperative), everyone else is pretty suspicious. And there are reports that accelerant was found in five places. The Post says some witnesses saw a man pouring "flammable motor oil" into an elevator shaft of one of the buildings, later chasing the man, and telling authorities...only to see someone calling himself "Guttman" telling the police that it wasn't his guy. The lawyer for Guttman told the press, "It's the last thing in the world we need right now. 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?" Testy but true - reports say that a watchman left before the fire started.
Anyway, sepculation is that Guttman would save money on demolition with a fire, but Gothamist would have to imagine that the headache of an FDNY investigation would be less than ideal. The American Manufacturing Company which made rope used to be housed in the warehouses; according to the Times, a witness says there had been coils and coils of rope there - which would have helped the fire spread quickly. And the American Playground Park, named after AMC, is nearby.
This is the biggest fire since the 1995 St. George Hotel fire in Brooklyn Heights; FD New York has a comphrehensive article about that fire. FD New York has also been critical in understanding what a 10 alarm fire means. The actual FDNY has pictures of the fire on its site and they are pretty amazing - we wonder if a firefighter took them. And the Flickr photographs have been incredible - you can see many of them with tags like greenpointterminalmarket, greenpointterminalwarehouse, and greenpointfire.
UPDATE: The assistant fire chief says that the fire is finally control, but they will continue to extinguish "deep pockets of fire" through the night. The length of the fire so far? One day, 11 hours and 36 minutes (the first reports were around 5:30AM yesterday).
Top photograph from the Matt Lennihan for the AP; bottom photograph from Michael G. Chan at daily snapshots, who also has pictures of the fire in its second day
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The pictures on flickr are what makes it so damned great. Think about it. We have 112 photos under one tag alone, from people who saw it, shot it, etc.
The "old school" media's coverage of this was extensive, but citizens with cameras caught many more interesting photos.
Simply amazing.
Some of those pictures on Flickr are mine! Thanks! ;)
I live in Williamsburg, and when I woke up yesterday morning I looked out the window and guess what I saw.... I grabbed my camera and shot a whole roll in about 10 minutes (yes -- I still use film) before heading off to work. I posted the best 5 on Flickr yesterday afternoon, but by then there were already over 100 other pictures of the same blaze. Amazing.
Anyway, link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmatthewturner/sets/72057594123435234/
:)
--jim
what is this, an advertisment for Flikr?
Photographers traveling with the fire departments is not uncommon. My father used to do it back in the 70s. He shot for a newspaper, but many times the photos are used for things such as arson investigations.
sounds like a case of the old "Jewish Lightning"
Regarding the smell, it was an unpleasant reminder of 9/11, particularly augmented since I work next to Ground Zero. I left the office at 7:30 and it reeked like it did 4+ years ago.
i agree with the unclear and terrible writing gothamist often has. arent you embarrassed??
I live *literally* across the street from the pile of burning rubble that once was the Greenpoint Terminal. The smell is noxious, the noise is overwhelming, and this is just the beginning. First they have to finish putting out the fire (20 hours and counting), then they have to demolish the rest of the ruins, then the cleanup, and then... the development begins.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, GOOD PEOPLE OF THE BLOGOSPHERE:
CALL 311 to leave a message for Mayor Bloomberg!!
Tell him, "NO REWARD FOR ARSON!!" The greedy developers who are clearly responsible for this disaster should not be allowed to build luxury high-rises and retail stores that the residents here never wanted in the first place. The criminals should be put in jail- NOT allowed to profit from their crimes, and the land should be given to the city and made into a park for the residents of Greenpoint and Williamsburg who have suffered MORE THAN enough from the reckless over-development of Brooklyn!!!
I have to agreee, this sentence made absolutely no sense to me:
"The Post says some witnesses saw a man pouring 'flammable motor oil' into an elevator shaft of one of the buildings, later chasing the man, and telling authorities, only for someone calling himself 'Guttman' saying it wasn't his guy."
I say we camp out at Guttman's mansion in Lawrence.
All the people who live there, have your cameras out and document everything.
Everyone put a webcam out your window and record it on to your hard drive. This is the only way.
We know that he's only going to get a small fine and will continue doing what he's doing.
I had enough of these people, yes, these people.
NO MORE! Summer's just around the corner.
Mr. Spade!
How do you do, Mr. Guttman?
You begin well, sir.
I distrust a man who says "when".
He's got to be careful not to drink too much...
...because he's not to be trusted when he does.
Well, sir...
...here's to plain speaking and clear understanding.
You're a close-mouthed man?
No, I like to talk.
Better and better. I distrust a close-mouthed man.
He generally picks the wrong time to talk and says the wrong things.
Talking's something you can't do judiciously unless you keep in practice.
Now, sir. We'll talk, if you like.
I'll tell you right out. I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk.
Swell!
Will we talk about the black bird?
You're the man for me, sir.
No beating about the bush. Right to the point.
Let's talk about the black bird, by all means.
That sentence about the post was confusing. Though I don't really get the source article either.
--------------------------------
"Witness Sean Vegezzi told The Post that he and some pals ran to the former terminal with their cameras at around 10 a.m. after hearing about the blaze and scurried up to one of the buildings' rooftops to take photos.
There, he said, they spotted a man pouring what looked like flammable motor oil into an elevator shaft.
"I said, 'Hey, what are you doing?' And he started running down the catwalk," said Vegezzi, 16.
The teen said that moments earlier, they had seen the same man stuffing sticks and brush into a drainage pipe along the side of the building.
"He didn't light it, but it looked like he was going to until me and my friends approached him," he said.
Vegezzi described the man as slim, middle-aged, with graying hair and wearing a beige T-shirt and khakis.
He said that as he and his pals were reporting what they saw to the cops, a man who identified himself as Guttman approached the group.
Vegezzi said the man kept repeating, "It's not one of my guys, it's not one of my guys," before adding to cops, "You'd better catch this guy."
-------------------------
I thought the fire started at 5:30am. He's saying that at 10am he saw the arsonist running around the complex put tindersticks around and dumping oil down a shaft? I was there at around 10:15 am and there were easily 200 (prob more) fire and police officials down there. I can't see the arsonist fanning the flames at that time.
It's an old New York story.
...
http://www.barrypopik.com/article/755/successful-fire-jewish-lightning
Sigh. You might as well use the comments that point out your mistakes to fix your poorly-written posts before you delete them.
wait, what happened at the st. george in '95?! that's where i live.
Club Wildfyre was shut down,
no fyremen to fight the St. George Hotel.
It's a shame that a nice old warehouse burned down.
Too bad it wasn't one of Ratner's turds, or some other piece of post-post-modern masturbation around town.
footage of the fire...
http://www.archive.org/details/greenpoint_fire
it was those jews next door hungry for land
Sean= Nycexposed, you know were always on the scene!
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