The Fire

Frank in the Falcon

On January 13th, a big red house where 25 people lived, on the opposite corner from where I live at Castleton and Park Ave. in Port Richmond, Staten Island, burned.  I heard the fire engine sirens as I was waking up at about 7:00 a.m.  Being a shutterbug, I took my camera and went outside.  No one was hurt, but a lot of poor families became homeless.

The funny part of this story, at least for me, is how much attention I'm getting out of this event because of my photos.  Later I saw a reporter from Channel 1 News at the scene and I showed him my photographs that I had printed out on my computer.  He interviewed me and I was included on the news in the fire story.  I thought this house fire was a significant story because of the architectural significance of the house.   When I saw the story on the news, it surprised me to learn that all the interest being shown to the fire was because the house was turned into a rooming and apartment house illegally. No one has yet mentioned anything about the architectural significance.

After the fire, a fire marshall from Brooklyn, who was investigating the fire, heard about my photos and came to my building.  My building security guard gave him a photo that I had given her.   She wouldn't give him my apartment number, but he left his card.  I then sent him some of my photos, which he called to thank me for.  Then today two more fireman who were fighting the fire heard about my photos and came to see me.  I gave them pictures that they said are going to be in a magazine.  They are going to send me a copy of the magazine.   This is a video I made that I put on flickr.  Staten Island lost about 230 firemen on 9/11.  It's been nice getting to know some of the fire fighters a little better.




Some of my photos:

The House Before the Fire

Update: 2/2/2012 The next day after the fire a tall wood fence was built around the half-burned house. This wall projected out into the street. Cars coming from the street in front couldn't see the oncoming traffice because of the wood fence causing several accidents. Then one night I heard a great "Boom." The wall in the Street fell down in the street. Fortunately there wasn't any cars passing at the time. The fire department arrived within 5 minutes. My photo below shows the firemen holding up the fence while it's being repaired.