BOOK REVIEW: BOOK REVIEW: The Fires: How a computer formula, big ideas, and the best of intentions burned down New York City -- and determined the future of cities
By Joe Flood, Riverhead Books, Hardcover, 2010, 325 Pages, $26.95
If you were to start reading "The Fires" without looking at the cover, you'd swear you were reading a really good page-turning novel. Politics, intrigue, the drama of life and death: It's all there. The fact that the book is actually a painstakingly researched, true story of actual historical events is noteworthy. Throw in the fact that "Fires" is author Joe Flood's first published work and you have a book that is remarkable indeed.
"Fires" is an account of a painful period in New York City's long and colorful history. Beginning in 1968, New York was wracked by a decade long series of devastating fires that killed more than 2,000 people and left hundreds of thousands displaced and homeless. Flood not only examines the agonizing toll the fires took on the victims and the men charged with fighting them, but he also traces and analyzes the long series of causal events that led up to the disastrous period New York firefighters came to call "The War Years."
What makes the book important is that the central facts surrounding the calamities that befell New York are eerily similar to those we face in many of our cities today. A declining manufacturing base in Manhattan -- brought on in no small part by interventionist zoning regulations -- caused mid- to lower-income workers to flee the city. The resulting decline in tax revenue led to financial problems resulting in pressures to slash city services in order to cut costs. One city service that got hardest hit was the fire department. In an effort to solve its financial woes, the city brought in the Rand Corporation with its mathematical modeling and systems analysis that were all the rage among efficiency experts. Based on Rand's recommendations, Fire Commissioner John O'Hagan and Mayor John Lindsay were able to push through cuts in the fire department budget that resulted in reduced services at a time when fires across the city were starting to increase. The conflagration that followed was practically inevitable.
At its heart, "Fires" is a cautionary tale about what happens when intellectual hubris meets liberal idealism, when liberal policy makers and reform-minded civic planners become so convinced they have the answers to what ails a city that they fall victim to a kind of tunnel vision. The irony of liberals who through the best of intentions impose directives that often result in disaster is a central theme of the book. But as Flood points out, "Liberalism was, in fact, at the heart of both the fire cuts and the city's fiscal crisis. It wasn't the tax-and-spend liberalism of activist civil service unions and no-questions-asked welfare, it was the paternalistic liberalism of can-do interventionism, the notion that cities, countries, and economies should be controlled from the top down by educated elites and number-crunching technocrats who could use the scientific method to bring greater order and stability to society."
In addition to his cogent analysis of historical events, the author's descriptive passages are a positive delight. When writing about Mayor John Lindsay's proclivity for arriving at fires straight from social engagements, he notes, "The formal evening wear Lindsay sometimes wore when called to a fire scene was less practical than [former Mayor] La Guardia's getup, but [Commissioner] Lowery usually outfitted the mayor in a fireman's heavy rubber turnout coat and white commissioner's helmet (a glossy, ostentatious bit of haberdashery that left the tall, elegant Lindsay sticking out like a manicured thumb on a bricklayer's hand.)"
Flood's fairness and impartiality towards his characters is nothing short of amazing. A good example is his treatment of Fire Chief/Commissioner John O'Hagan, the man who oversaw the virtual dismantling of the fire department but who was also responsible for ushering in many innovations such as air masks, telescoping tower ladders and shatter resistant eye shields that remain standards in firefighting today. Flood is somehow able to present O'Hagan as a mythical, larger-than-life figure while at the same time showing a sensitive caring side of the man that few ever saw. Quoting O'Hagan's daughter, Catherine, about a fire that claimed the lives of 12 firefighters, he writes: "Twenty-third Street was absolutely devastating for him ... He kept in touch with the families for years afterwards, it really stayed with him." And in response to a stirring eulogy for the fallen, Flood quotes a retired firefighter's reaction: "After that speech ... we would have followed that man into hell."
"The Fires" is a good book on many levels. History buffs will enjoy its accuracy, depth and disciplined research. Architects and urban planners will appreciate the lessons it offers for civic design. Policy wonks and politicians should read it for the lessons it offers. As for the rest of us, it remains a really great page-turning saga. After finishing the book I am convinced outside of all his hard work and research Joe Flood is a really good and talented writer. And while I might not follow him into hell I'll certainly buy his next book... whatever it's about.