May 5, 2006
FDNY to Tear Down What's Left at Brooklyn Warehouse

The investigationcontinues at the Greenpoint Terminal Market. We thought this quote from a Department of Environmental Protection workerin the Daily News summed it up well: "It looks like an atomic bomb hit it. This looks like a war zone. Everything's totally burned down. Fuhgeddaboudit." One concern is that the buildings will collapse, since the structures have been so devastated by the fire, so the Fire Department is going to start tearing down some buildings. In the Times, Baruch Singer, the unsucessful purchaser of the land, is profiled, and it's not pretty:
"Baruch Singer has a long history of putting tenants at jeopardy," said Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for Housing Here and Now, a coalition of tenants, housing advocates, labor unions and clergy members. "He has among the worst records of any landlord in the city of complying with the housing code and ensuring that his buildings are safe and habitable."He did sell 104 buildings last fall. And developer Joshua Guttman who owns the warehosue (and was trying to sell to Singer) is being sued by tenants at 50 Bridge Street over poor living conditions (NY1 reports they complain their condos are "damaged with water stains, holes in the ceiling and floors, mold, rotting wood and other housing violations").In 1995, part of a Harlem building on which Mr. Singer held the mortgage collapsed, throwing sleeping tenants to the ground. Three people died. Mr. Baruch was not charged because the collapse was deemed to be not "reasonably foreseeable," prosecutors said at the time.
Our coverage of the fire: Day of the fire, day 2, and what was inside the warehouse.
Photograph taken on the first day of the fire from Tien Mao




they're tearing down the skybridges as we "speak" :-(
That is depressing - skybridges are my favorite thing, but I guess they would be the most delicate after a fire.
It looks like one of these guys (Singer or Guttman) got exactly what they wanted.
One will go to jail, and one will make a billion damn dollars off his new high-rise condos.