This is just not what you want to see when you look up at a building
you were in less than a minute ago.
234 is first to arrive, the firemen that have hopped out have pulled
hoses off it's back side and are standing up the basement entrance.
the other guy in the photo is one of the squatters...
 234 takes off
down the semicircle drive to go find a hydrant on the street - dropping
2 hose lines off it's rear as it proceeds.
the guys from 234 have decided against the basement entrance and have
begun smashing in the cinderblock main door with an odd shaped hook/sledgehammer
looking tool.
 As more
units mass, more men accumulate at the front entrance, some with ladders
off the ladder trucks... perhaps a minute after the first shots above
were taken.
.gif) First in are
the cats that climbed this ladder and smashed the window bars in a
bit...
.gif) ...to be quickly
followed by many through the now ripped open front door: total wall
smashing time: little under 2 minutes. Just where do they get them
lovely toys?
 More men with
more hoses arrive, along with Mr. Clipboard.
 At one end
of the driveway, a bit of maneuvering was needed to get ladder 111
in. It was a small street, with a schoolbus parked right behind the
photographer.
 Eventually they
get in and begin rising the tower to the occasion...
 out by the
street they've massed and set up shop... the bit of red to the left
in the trees is a truck right outside the front fo the building.
 EMS guys wait
by the end of one of the lefthand end of the driveway, ambulance nearby
and at the ready...
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We step backwards into each other - not
so much in horror as in shear amazement.
The Fucking building is on fire.
Plumes of smoke rise from the 4th floor. Somewhere around the back
of the building the entire lefthand corner of the 4th floor is engulfed
in a rage of flames.
We didn't see it. We didn't smell it. We didn't know we were in a
burning building. That guy on the second floor didn't yell anything
about a fire... the only indication was the arriving fire trucks.
I find myself muttering what I muttered as I watched the second of
the WTC towers collapse just a month ago - "I can't fucking believe
this!"
the towers were far more dramatic of course, and after you see something
like that with your own eyes, seeing a building you were just in on
fire doesn't scare you. You're outside. the crackheads are running
out, and you... you've got a camera in your hands and a job of your
own to do.
A pumper truck pulls up the driveway. Our grandfatherly newfound friend,
who was probably about to give us a tour of the building if we asked
kind enough and threw in some breakfast or a case of King Cobra, drops
his can and disappears.
the firemen are about as calm and cool as you can get in this situation
- asking a squatter right away if there were any kids in there. By
this time many, many young Hasidic kids from the area are already
on the scene. 2 of them are right next to us - telling us how there's
always fires here, and how kids go in there all the time. More and
more sirens fill the air as other units arrive at the scene.
We stay as long as we can at our spot right outside before a tall
blue eyed managerial type fireman with a clipboard asks us to skoot.
We toss some detail at him about the rumored dozen or so squatters
and the dog upstairs.
We walk out along the edge of the driveway, as a mass or 2 of more
firemen head for the building. - all rather calmly - which is pretty
reassuring considering events of just a month ago at WTC, where frenzied
firemen rushed to the scene from far and wide. Today though the impression
was overwhelmingly that the situation was under control even before
the flames were.
With the hoses dropped and 234 somewhere in the clear by a hydrant,
the tedious task of maneuvering one of the larger ladder trucks up
the driveway has begun. It's a tight squeeze pass parked cars and
a school bus, but they get it up and in - making it look easy.
Down in a lot to the side, the well dressed Hasidic kids have swarmed
the area behind their school. Today's their holy day, so they all
probably just got out of church. Or maybe that's where their dads
are - cuz there are a million kids, a few moms, but relatively few
dads in sight. Everyone thinks we're reporters... afterall, we're
white... and we're not well dressed just as literally ever other white
person here is. Talk about sticking out in a crowd.
Poking through scanner frequencies, a kid who had to be 6 or 7 at
the most cues me into the local police frequency... saying his dad
has a scanner at home.
these kids are freakin' smart. And people wonder why Jews got all
the money! =) they be edgeimicating them!
We hear a dog bark a few times... guess that mutt really was up there
afterall.
We poke around a bit more before heading toward the other end of the
driveway. Along the way we encounter Mr. Clipboard, who asks us a
bit of what we saw. the world is all about paperwork, it would seem.
Even when something burns up, someone's got to take a few notes to
hand on over to the fire marshall.
We proceed a bit further to end the of the driveway where the EMS
guys are ready to take anyone needing it to a hospital. they haven't
had any customers, and likely won't have any from this scene. the
EMS guys always set up shop at a location towards the end of the street
a fire is on, so they're ambulances isn't blocked in by fire trucks
and they can make a quick exit. If it's a larger fire with many ambulances
called in, they all form a staging area where they can depart quickly.
The juxtaposition in the end though was startling. One moment you
are standing talking to an old cat in a quiet, peaceful, charming
location - the next you're in the center of some action flick gone
silly. How the hell did that happen???
What's still more eerie is that had the member we were waiting for
been on time or met up with us, there's a good chance we would have
been in the building sooner - perhaps not encountering the local squatters
until we were on their turf, with the dog and all up there... perhaps
there was a 'street pharmacy' up there with some junkies to boot.
We mighta been up by the top when it caught fire. We mighta been accused
by the squatters or police of actually setting the damned thing alit,
assuming we'd have survived the many, many hidden dangers within this
location! This was one time we could safely thank someone for not
showing or being late!
All things considered, there were only about a dozen or so fire engines
on the scene. the fire itself was pretty sizable, but given that it
was not a residential building (at least not officially) with many
people to evacuate, it remained a single alarm situation. Fires have
a degree of severity where 1 alarm will gather a dozen or so local
fire engines, and perhaps the elite rescue squad (there are 5 of such
in the city, one for each borough). Had this been a largely occupied
building, there's little doubt it would have gone to a second alarm,
resulting in perhaps a half dozen to a dozen more units, with assorted
extra trucks like the 'field com' communications truck, 'satelite'
and 'squad' trucks, were again are some of the more elite firemen
in town. Everything here was orderly - from the dropping of the hoses
to the positioning of the ladder trucks. It's all loosely pre-scripted
and orderly, despite the chaos such situations can present. This is
what made the WTC disaster so harsh - as there was no script written
for such a occasion. No one ever though a skyscraper would fall like
that, let along 3 of them.
If you haven't figured it out, emergency scenes are a bit of an obsession
amongst some of us, thus as you might imagine this chance encounter,
with both urban exploration and emergency scene photography was both
surreal in It's unlikely timing, and pretty fun to watch, especially
considering No one seemed to get hurt from the event.
We do wonder though what will come of the squatters. Certainly the
building will be sealed again, and those looking to possibly level
it in order to build apartments have a strengthened case for such
action... though hopefully they will see fit to renovate it into a
high school - as the building would be well suited for it - and at
nearly 100 years old, deserves a bit better treatment than It's current
condition and possible impending death.
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