Fire Rouses The Cave Dwellers

December 11, 2014

     The cold that has gripped the nation has caused an inversion of temperatures in New York City over the last week.  After an unexpected light snowfall yesterday, the cold wave only ended early this morning, when the temperatures rose into the temperate range.  A cold that registered below zero with the wind chill factor, made cave dwellers of everyone, this writer included.  I did brave the cold a few days to participate in a "spinning" class: 45 minutes of bare-knuckled stationery bicycle cycling.  it was an effort to combat the effects of the larger portions of food I found myself compulsively consuming to counter effect the cold, which I could feel even in my apartment with all the windows closed.

     With Beau waking me to tell me he needed to go out at 2:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., I was forced to leave the apartment at once --without washing my face, brushing my teeth or combing my hair, dressed haphazardly so as not to delay the moment Beau's posterior would make contact with the ground outside.   My lack of sleep was such that even saying "Hello" to the doorman on duty was an effort.  The experience has given me some sense of the other-worldly state of those tortured by sleep deprivation.

     Beau always performed as I hoped.  Fortunately, too, by yesterday (Friday), he had developed the ability to sleep through the night until 5:30 a.m. and I recovered some of my sanity.  I have been feeding him later and later to try to adjust his digestive system to something closer to my sleep cycle.  It will take time.

     This morning, Saturday, I awoke on my own shortly before 5:00 a.m. and dressed before Beau awoke.  I brought him downstairs and, exiting the building, came face-to-face with the two-story building across the street, the bank where I keep my account, going up in flames.  The fire had been called in twenty-five minutes earlier, one of the Emergency Medical Service technicians on the scene told me.  Crossing the street to try to reach Riverside Drive, the smoke's penetration of the air was palpable.  Residents in a half-way house down the block were standing outside covering their mouths so as not to breath in smoke.  They needn't have bothered: the burning building was belching smoke continuously, the efforts of the firemen to douse it notwithstanding.  The fire has still not completely abated as I write this at seven in the evening.  Two hundred firefighters were called to the scene of the five-alarm blaze, with four hospitalized from fire-related injuries.

     How the fire happened remains a curious mystery.  The offices in the building, rented by Citibank, had just been completely renovated.  It is fair to say that the renovations were probably done in compliance with all applicable fire regulations, which rules out substandard electrical work as the cause of the fire.  Where the fire started is unknown: some said the fire started in the basement, others that it started in the second floor restaurant in the adjoining building.

     One man, who identified himself as a resident of the neighborhood for fifty-two years, had a more intriguing theory as to the fire's origins:  It was known that there were leaks in the roof of the building, he said.  The leaks would have frozen during the inversion of temperature this week.  Last night, when the thaw came, the ice crystals would have turned to water and started to drip as they used to.  The difference was that the severity of the cold could have caused the walls of the renovated areas to crack open, exposing electrical wires.  When the wires were moistened by the drip from the melting ice crystals, the electricity short-circuited, creating the sparks needed to start the fire.

     If true, the best-laid plans reveal themselves vulnerable to the unprovided-for extraordinary.  Rather like the collapse on September 11, 2001 of the two World Trade Center towers, which fell because the heat generated by the jet fuel of the attacking planes raised the temperature of the girders supporting the buildings to melting level.

     With the bank building's destruction, for the foreseeable future neighborhood residents used to the convenience of their local bank will have to trek to 96th Street from the vicinity of 110th Street to withdraw funds.  More affected are those who had safe deposit boxes in the basement, which were completely destroyed with their precious contents inside.

      My friend, Danny, the dealer in long-playing records who plies his trade in front of "Samad" delicatessen on the ground floor above the restaurant adjoining the bank, is very upset:

     Two people were killed by reckless cabbies on 96th Street and Broadway last night and now this!  What's next?  --The end of the world?

     Danny's linden tree, which he has been selling his wares beside for twenty-two years, was chopped down by the firemen.  And so he is forlorn.

     We have had five snowfalls since winter started on December 21.  After last week, we are all hoping the end of winter will come sooner , not later.