The Great Greenpoint Terminal Market Fire of '06: Was it Murder?

Chalk up one more piece of New York City’s industrial history gone with the death (murder?) of the Brooklyn Terminal Market in that huge conflagration in Greenpoint yesterday. The Terminal, which was established in 1890, was once Brooklyn’s second-largest industrial employer and home to the world's largest rope factory. It was a potentially significant site to those who believe that structures representing the city’s industrial heritage are worth preserving, and that it might be valuable to save a building here and there so that children in, say, 2056 or 2096 might see evidence of time when people actually made things in New York City rather than trading bonds, doing graphic design and selling each other things.

Preservation, of course, is now a moot point.

Gowanus Lounge is clearly not alone in wondering how the Greenpoint Terminal Market became engulfed by New York City's biggest fire since 1995, not counting September 11.

There are several interesting tidbits to ponder as the embers still glow and smoke still rises between the East River and West Street:

1. The story now is the FDNY investigation into the cause of the fire; Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta calls the blaze suspicious, citing the time it started, the rapidity with which it spread and the intensity with which it burned.

2. The owner of the sprawling property is developer Josh Guttman. A bit about Guttman’s ownership was reported by Gothamist yesterday, and late last night by several of NYC's TV stations.

3. Guttman clearly has plans to redevelop the property. A preliminary rendering displayed by Curbed, showed five luxury apartment towers, and a plan that seems to incorporate some elements of the (previously) existing buildings. By last night, photos of the plan were on the 11 o'clock news.

4. In 2004, the Village Voice reported on a mysterious fire at a building in Dumbo owned by Guttman that burned in the midst of a zoning dispute. No one was charged, but the investigation was not closed. Again, the coincidence has been much noted. An isolated fire in Dumbo, it seems, is relegated to the Voice; an inferno of yesterday's magnitude is national news.

5. Council Member David Yassky told WNYC’s Fred Mogul yesterday that the Terminal Market was a landmark of historic significance that was worth preserving. The Waterfront Preservation Alliance had been pushing for landmark status, as had neighborhood and other groups.

6. The process of developing the Greenpoint Terminal Market is now much, much simpler without any messy preservation fights, stop work orders during demolition brought on by environmental remediation-type issues, etc.

Gowanus Lounge is outraged at this latest loss of our history and will miss his Sunday morning photo strolls down West Street, and those hulking buildings with the sky bridges and the wooden sidewalks. (Flickr photoset is here.) GL doesn't gamble, but if he did, he would wager a significant sum that the FDNY investigation turns up foul play. Which would make the murder of the Greenpoint Terminal Market one of those stories that says more than anyone cares to admit about the development frenzy that has engulfed Brooklyn in the early part of the 21st Century.