That Was Some Fire

The Greenpoint waterfront was on fire yesterday, as a 10-alarm blaze burned down part of a historic factory complex, the Greenpoint Terminal Market:

The blaze burned all day as it consumed a former rope factory on West Street near the site of the Continental Iron Works in Greenpoint, which launched the ironclad warship Monitor for the Union 144 years ago. The fire blackened the sky above northern Brooklyn with thick smoke shot through at its base with bright flames a block deep. The plume could be seen for miles.

“It was like a flamethrower,” said John Czaplinski, who lives nearby on Noble Street. “The fire was leaping from one building to another.”

More than 350 firefighters from at least 70 units spent all day at the fire, those in front retreating to safety when entire walls crumbled and launched smoldering red bricks 100 feet down the narrow streets of the waterfront. At 10 alarms, it was called the city’s largest fire in more than a decade, excepting the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The speed of the blaze and the fact that it started just before dawn in abandoned buildings led investigators to suspect arson, said Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. The buildings were owned by Joshua Guttman, of Lawrence, N.Y., a real estate developer with a history of buying commercial properties and turning them into condominiums.

A lawyer for Mr. Guttman, Joseph Kosofsky, said the developer had no idea how the fire began. “It’s the last thing in the world we need right now,” he said. “He’s a very substantial guy. If someone set fire to it, it could have been squatters, it could have been anybody. How in the hell can you watch 21 acres of industrial property?”

. . .

The complex was originally the site of the American Manufacturing Company, built around 1890 initially to make rope and bagging, later manufacturing 10 million pounds of oakum, a jute fiber used in caulking seams on wooden ships, according to the Municipal Art Society. By 1913, the company employed 2,234 workers, many settling nearby in Greenpoint.

. . .

Firefighters fought to keep the flames from jumping West Street, where the buildings were linked by overhead corridors. Shortly after 9:30 a.m., a shower of bricks, plaster and beams crashed onto that street, inches from a parked car. A short while later, the facade of a different wall first buckled, then caved outward, collapsing onto Noble Street.

Commissioner Scoppetta said he expected firefighters to work through the night, followed by the demolition of what remained of the buildings. No one was forced to stay out of their homes, he said.

Mr. Kosofsky rejected any suggestion that Mr. Guttman could have been involved in the blaze. He said the destruction wrought by the fire caused more problems than the demolition Mr. Guttman had planned.

“We can knock it down in a half a day,” Mr. Kosofsky said.

“He is devastated; he is very upset,” Mr. Kosofsky said of Mr. Guttman. “He does not need this aggravation. He had big plans. It is holding him up. He does not need the publicity.”

Councilman David Yassky was on the radio yesterday saying that he was pushing to have the site landmarked.

From Hunters Point, Queens at around 8:00 a.m.: