Tenement fires in New York in the 60s and 70s were a special terror on top of a general horror show. When your or your neighbors’ home burns in the tight quarters of the city it consumes your psyche, not just your belongings, and, even if just briefly, you are on the street. It happened on the Lower East Aide, in Harlem and elsewhere in the boroughs, as landlord neglect set in, as housing got crowded and as old tenement infrastructure decayed. Over time, the flames raged most drastically in the South Bronx. That is the back drop for a 2010 book that looks at this plague era, with a special eye toward the role a think tank’s overhyped computerized statistical analysis played in fanning the flames. Joe Flood’s “The Fires” (Broadly subtitled, “How a computer formulas, big ideas and the best of intentions burned down New York City and determined he future of cities.”) has particular portent in this age, when big data algorithms are a prowling wolf.
The Fires - Amazon.com
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