Word: bronx
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...Arson is a barometer of urban decay," says New York City Deputy Chief Fire Marshal John Barracato, "and most city fathers are ashamed to admit they have this problem." But the ruinous dimensions cannot be hidden. In New York City's South Bronx, where Jimmy Carter took an impromptu walking tour earlier this month, there have been more than 7,000 fires in the past two years. "The destruction is reminiscent of the bombed-out cities in Europe," says Bronx District Attorney Mario Merola, who was a navigator in World War II. Chicago's Humboldt Park area...
...ghetto areas like the South Bronx and Humboldt Park, landlords often see arson as a way of profitably liquidating otherwise unprofitable assets. The usual strategy: drive out tenants by cutting off the heat or water; make sure the fire insurance is paid up; call in a torch. In effect, says Barracato, the landlord or businessman "literally sells his building back to the insurance company because there is nobody else who will buy it." Barracato's office is currently investigating a case in which a Brooklyn building insured for $200,000 went up in flames six minutes before its insurance...
...strictly personal reasons such as jealousy or revenge. A federal study puts 55% of adult arsonists in the burn-for-hate category. In New York, a jealous suitor and two friends have been charged with setting a fire last year in a Puerto Rican social club in the South Bronx. Twenty-five party-goers died in the blaze. The alleged motive: the man's girl friend had attended the party against his wishes. Says Donald Mershon, manager of the Metropolitan Chicago Loss Bureau, which handles property insurance claims for more than 100 firms: "Kids used to throw rocks...
...conventional note. The camera follows a prison guard into the inner confines of the penitentiary, enabling Young to run through a quick introduction of the various inmates around whom the plot centers. Miguel Pinero fills his script with the street-wise argot of Harlem and the South Bronx that gives the dialogue an authentic ring. The effective color and accuracy of the ghetto-flavored jive should hardly come as a surprise; Pinero owes this ability to evoke a particular brand of slang to his own experience as an inmate at Sing Sing Prison. The crisp repartee that dominates the opening...
...political reformer, no matter how irresistable, can do anything about it. Koch sees this; anyone who saw the agony of the last few years of John Lindsay's administration has to know it. Of course, there are the minority groups: anyone who lives in Bedford Stuyvesant or the South Bronx cannot fail to want change. But most of the city is not the South Bronx--it is Flatbush and Canarsie, where the people like their Yankees hot and their politicians quiet. And most of all, it is places like Elmwood, where the people don't want anything out of politicians...