Durant Street Drama

I'd been home from Savannah for about an hour when things got crazy here.  We're all safe and fine and whatnot, but there was trouble across the street.  Here's the link to the Police Blog story on it. I'm not ready yet to write.

http://blogs.lowellsun.com/policeline/2013/02/24/fire-christian-hill/

Here's another story from the Lowell Sun:

http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_22663008/fire-damages-lowell-home

We left for a while because we had dinner plans with friends, and it was important to get Lucy out of the house.   They've been doing a lot of stuff at her school about how to dial 911, and they've had visits from firefighters, police, and EMTs to talk about those important jobs.  Her comment: "I'm going to have a lot to tell my teacher this week!"

It smells bad here.  But at least no one was hurt.

Centralville Update

You may remember a post from back in February, when we mentioned that a nearby landmark on Bridge street had been destroyed by a fire. This past Friday night, another terrible fire demolished another 4-story building just one block away. This fire, unlike the previous one, took two lives, and left a third man in critical condition. It was very, very bad, and we were very sad to hear this news. It was a building we pass every day.

The first floor of the building was a business called Guaranteed Aluminum, which made replacement windows, screens, and the like. It was a business that we had frequented on occasion, for instance, when our storm window shattered and we needed a replacement, and when we needed a screen for our front storm door. The picture below is from their website; I had never had a chance to take a photo of the place:

We walked down to Bridge street on our extended walk this afternoon and saw this:


That's the same corner as in the photo above.

Here's the Varnum Building that went down in February:


And here's what it looks like now:

These two buildings (and now empty lots) are just one block away from each other. Our friend Matt told me that there was actually a third 4-story building in the lot between the two of them that was condemned years ago and torn down by the city. I wish I could find some good historic photos of Bridge Street for comparison; the whole skyline -- not to mention street-level -- has changed so much just this year.