Posted 6:12 PM by Gene

Courtesy of our friends at GE BANCORP we've spent the last hour beholding a West Philly apartment building on fire, spectacularly so -- ghetto housing probably from the Great War, perhaps a nice place once, and despite relatively solid walls and perhaps a steel frame made almost exclusively of wood, we guess, and the whole thing roaring to death. The conflagration seems to have traveled the building from west to east, borne on a stiff wind. We imagine this times a thousand during the Chicago Fire or the San Francisco earthquake. The firefighters (as they must) fight such battles by remote control, and the flames laugh at their puny streams of water, belching smoke as they laugh. I salute the forces of fire extinguishment on occasions like this; theirs is a thankless task, made more so by buildings almost designed for self-destruction.