Arson on St. Marks

From this morning's Daily News:

Playing with fire
Errol Louis

The fire that gutted the Crown Heights brownstone next to mine Saturday morning could easily have killed me and my family, had we been asleep or unlucky. But my wife and I caught an early whiff of the smoke that suddenly began billowing into our home shortly after 10 a.m.

We dashed into the street with little more than our 5-month-old son and overcoats thrown over our pajamas. By then, at least a dozen Fire Department rigs had swarmed onto the block, led by the heroes in our local firehouse, Ladder 132.

A few harrowing hours later, it was all over, with nobody killed, thank God. A Red Cross van passed by in search of the house's half-dozen or so newly homeless residents. A carpenter sawed wood to board the place up. A pediatrician did tests to confirm that we got my little boy off the block quickly enough to prevent damage from the thick smoke that has seeped into half the rooms in our house.

But more than just the smoke stinks. Yesterday, a Fire Department spokesman told me the burning of 600 St. Marks Ave. has been classified as arson. No arrests have been made. Investigators should be sure to check city property records, available online at www.nyc.gov, which show the house changed hands three times in less than two years, each time for considerably more than the place was plausibly worth. In February 2004, a longtime owner named Gloria Moore sold the house for $640,000 to a woman named Francillia Ryan, who in turn sold the house to Janet Howard in December 2004 for $790,000.

A few weeks ago, on Dec. 19, the house changed hands yet again, bought by someone named Crispin Booker for $850,000. None of the speculators who flipped the building ever actually lived in the place, a notorious eyesore inhabited by a group of five to 10 regulars. Some tenants collected bottles all day and stashed them in front of the building; others were involved in sketchy transactions that kept a stream of visitors passing in and out at all hours. The Sanitation Department issued more than $1,200 in fines for the bottles and other garbage in front of the house.

The fact that the place was a dump somehow didn't deter loan officers, appraisers and insurance agents from lending higher and higher amounts of money on each flip, until Citibank, according to city records, lent an astronomical $850,000 just weeks ago. No one on the block thought the building was worth anywhere near that much.

Neighbors tell me that an ominous warning was allegedly made to the building's residents the night before the fire to quit the place or else. The rumor gained strength when one of the tenants ran up and down the block as the fire burned, yelling that the blaze was set.

Many of us thanked the firefighters who saved our lives and property Saturday. We will be even more thankful when the fire marshals arrest whoever put so many lives in danger.

Originally published on January 10, 2006