It seems that a big point of the protest is that the owners have been absent/unavailable for comment since the fire. How about sympathizing with the tenants who cannot hear from the owners? If you know how to get in touch with them/it, why not let the rest of us know how to do this? Seems as if the building did not have a sprinkler system and perhaps did not even have smoke alarms or pull stations. Perhaps the so-called "owners" just want to run and hide, and this seems just a little bit irresponsible. But what do I know? I just live here and know a little bit about the responsibility of owning a commercial building. If I am way off-base here, I am happy to be corrected. Roger
I'm just guessing here, but I'd be surprised if the owners' denial of entry to former residents and others isn't related to issues of liability -- monetarily or morally. If the building has been declared dangerous, in imminent danger of collapse, or words to that effect by officials with expertise in such things, the owner's insurance company and/or attorney have probably indicated that massive lawsuits would follow if someone got hurt inside after being given specific or tacit permission to enter. And the insurance company would probably claim that the permission was a violation of its policy and would walk away from responsibility for paying. All this, above and beyond how an owner would feel if, after allowing someone in, that persongot hurt or killed in a way that retrospectively seemed highly predictable. I sympathize with anyone whose personal property is inside the building. And sympathize even more strongly if someone's pet is in there -- physically able to leave but probably too scared, disoriented, hungry, etc. to do so. But, candidly, I wouldn't go inside a condemned building just because some knucklehead with no special expertise in such things, and who didn't exercise good judgement, went in, got some things, came back out unscathed, and said it didn't look dangerous. This reminds me of the stories about disasters that befall firefighters when beams, walls, bathtubs, and so forth fall on and pin them down. And these are people trained to go into places in imminent danger of collapse. Forget about the material goods. As for the pets -- presumably mostly cats -- do the experts have any ideas about how to lure them out? A two- or three-story jump isn't beyond what most cats can do instinctively. ------------------------------------------------------ Alan Krigman KRF Management 215-349-6500, fax 215-349-6502 www.krf.icodat.com
