Luxury condo fire
January 16, 1999
I passed the luxury apartment house a hundred times over the last two or so years, always struck by how out of place it was among the buildings around it, stuck at the corner of Washington Park in Union City.
It was one of the signs that the neighborhood was recovering from the blight of urban decay, one of many new buildings planned, and the first of several built as anchors in the area.
Many of the arrogant people who lived there, thought themselves superior to the less fortunate population in the old buildings, many even thought themselves above the law enough to drive the wrong way along the street rather than go around the block to access Paterson Plank Road.
Then, three days ago, I noticed the barriers in front of the place and rubble at the foot of the building along the sidewalk. I was too busy steering the car over the ice to take a closer look, thinking that some damage had been caused by the series of storms hitting neighborhood.
Today, I saw the ruins, and realized from the black detail around the outside of each window, the building had suffered a fire. The newspaper said a man had discarded a match carelessly into a waste basket full of paper, which abruptly caught fire, then spread to the curtains, and then through the ceiling, eating its way through the walls one by one until all the condos in the buildings were inflames.
He apparently tried to put out the fire with water, but failed, and then fled the room, the only room with a telephone that might have brought help quickly enough to keep the flames contained. As it was, precious minutes passed before a neighbor across the street noticed the smoke and called, and by the time the fire department arrived, the four alarm blaze was out of control.
No one died, but 80 people are now homeless, 80 people who thought themselves immune to the problems that plagued other less superior houses around them. Neighbors complained about how long the fire department took to get their hoses going, but they did not see the three connections drawn through the doors on both sides, as fire fighters fought the blaze in hand to hand combat. They said the elaborate and twisted interior design prevented them from being able to battle the blaze property, or get to the hot spots where they might have kept the fire contained.
It is cold tonight, as it has been for three nights running, although the weather has grown drier. I know no one will be pulling out the wrong way from that one way street. No one will be looking down their noses at those shivering, more humbled masses that pass those doors on a daily basis.
The fire, whatever way it started, proved how little difference there is between the families, those with money or without, except maybe to make those people now homeless act a little more human now that they understand they are not invulnerable to tragedy, nor above being cast out to the street.