Rosenwach Fire The Morning After
On the night of July 4, Williamsburg got its own pyrotechnics show, only this year it wasn’t over the East River—it was at the site of the Rosenwach Wood Tank Company on Wythe Avenue, where a two-alarm fire broke out at around 9 p.m. According to commenters on Gothamist, the blaze started on the company’s…
On the night of July 4, Williamsburg got its own pyrotechnics show, only this year it wasn’t over the East River—it was at the site of the Rosenwach Wood Tank Company on Wythe Avenue, where a two-alarm fire broke out at around 9 p.m. According to commenters on Gothamist, the blaze started on the company’s North 9th Street lot where the company constructs roof-top water tanks. According to two local blogs, a group of twenty-somethings (“white kids in the twenties,” according to 11211 or “hipster douchebags,” according to NYShitty) were setting off roman candles right next to the lot. In addition to stacks of wood, there was a large pile of sawdust which would have made quite a combo with a stray firework. The photo above shows how the site looked yesterday and the video on the jump shows some live action from the night-of.
Two-Alarm Fire On Wythe Avenue In Williamsburg [Gothamist]
Video: Williamsburg Fire [Flickr] GMAP
People have been shooting off fireworks almost every weekend for the last couple of months in bushwick. Oh — not hipsters.
I suspect insurance fraud and the fireworks story is a cover. I bet the cement company down the road (actually on Kent)had thought of that…too bad cement doesn’t burn.
I know Phil- we worked together on keeping firehouses open in 2002-3. Fat lot of good it did us. But Williamsburg is not going to be the Bronx. Before the hipsters discovered it was a working class neighborhood, with open lots and not so great areas, as well as streets of small, family owned homes. I used to really love it. We used to sleep outside the firehouse, in front of the house next door so we would know when the FDNY came to take over the house. The neighbors bought us food and drink, blankets…. These are people who have been through a lot of changes. If Robert Moses couldn’t knock them out, empty buildings won’t either.
Seeing as Philip DePaolo is like a broken record when it comes to affordable housing he should be thrilled so much squatter-filled free-housing is in the pipeline.
LC – I totally agree with your sentiment… but one thing. “sue these “kids” and their parents for every dime incurred in losses.”
Why should their parents be involved? I’m 32, should you call my parents if I broke you window?
If you read the NYShitty report, the “hipster” tip came from someone who was on Metropolitan Avenue when the fire broke out. Williamsburg always puts on a good show of amateur fireworks, and this past weekend (even without the draw of fireworks on the East River) was no exception.
It appears Williamburg will be the front lines of this generation’s fight against the dreaded face of urban blight.
“The problem we’re having now is that we’re starting to get squatters in these buildings and lots,” said Williamsburg neighborhood activist Philip DePaolo, who compared the current-day situation in the neighborhood to the Bronx in the late ’70s. “Blight draws crime, and if you have blocks and blocks of vacant lots with no people, that creates a problem.”
dibs, that’s right, there’s Rosenwach and Isaacs. I suppose Rosenwach will sell the land to a condo developer and go somewhere in NJ where they don’t have to compete with hipsters for land.
There have been later reports subsequent to that *one unconfirmed* report that say that it was a group of kids, under 20, mixed white and hispanic.
I live in Williamsburg and I see people of all ages and races setting off illegal firecrackers every year. It’s too bad people can’t focus on substantive issues, like the fact that this fire was literally across the street from a firehouse Bloomberg closed, instead of getting on their hobbyhorse about hipsters.