Squat Fire

Just down the hill from my house, there used to be an old apartment building of the slumlord variety. When I moved into the neighborhood, at least one of the “homeless” Vietnam vets who panhandled near the Fremont Bridge actually lived in that building. Years later it caught fire and was boarded up afterwards. But people continued to live in there. It caught fire at least two more times (this photo is from the third) before the building was torn down. I never found out if anyone was hurt in any of the fires, because none of them ever made the news.

Now there are fancy three-story live-work townhouses in the space. I suppose this is where I should moralize about inequity or homelessness or urban renewal and good design. But I won’t. I’m just sharing a microhistory of a plot of land on a busy corner in Fremont.