Over two hundred lives were uprooted from a fatal fire at 22 James Street in Chinatown, Manhattan. Among the displaced tenants who narrowly escaped from the blazing building were my roommates and I. By dawn, the fire that broke out in the middle of the cold February night had ravaged our home and everything in it.

Shortly after, a seven-alarm fire on Grand and Eldridge Street consumed two more turn of the century buildings—home to over fifty-five families. Officials say [the affected] buildings will have to be demolished. A two-block stretch will also be closed for weeks, and twenty to thirty businesses temporarily shuttered. (Huffington Post, April 13, 2010)

In many cases, city records reveal building violations, missing smoke detectors, exposed wiring and blocked passageways. Still, the loss of community outweighs the threat of tenement fires and displacement.