Note from Connie: As you can see in this article, the story of the East Harlem fire and the deaths that resulted braids together the stories of New Yorkers with far-flung roots — Mexican, Puerto Rican, Greek, Russian, Ecuadorean. Reading an article like this, you really get a vivid portrait, in tragic microcosm, of the melting pot that can be found in so many corners of the city, something that can be hidden behind closed doors and only becomes apparent when something like this happens.
Any thoughts on how an awareness of this ethnic mix will affect people’s reactions to the fire and its aftermath?
My father was actually part of the team that was tasked to the clean up of the explosion in Harlem. I understood the objective story of collapsed buildings and impersonal numbers of the casualties. However, this article shows that what happened was not another piece of news. It was a tragedy that took away a piece of New York.