City: New Condos More Important Than Fire in Your Old Brownstone

Well, this is certainly indicative of the priorities of Mayor Bloomberg's City Hall. According to New York Post, two of the five firehouses closed down by the city in 2003—Engine 202 in Red Hook and Engine 212 in Williamsburg—will be sold (Brilliant! Genius!) for condos.

That's right. The man who funnels all his energy into driving smokers, purveyors of trans fats and folks who don't clean up after their pets into submission—but can't seem to get excited about weeks-long power outages in Queens, whether the Museum of the City of New York has a home, if 9/11 rescue workers need a little TLC and $$$, and if greater Brooklyn is handed over to a modern-day robber baron as a present—thinks that Brooklyn, a place with more and more condo towers, but fewer firehouses, needs still more condos, but no more firehouses to protect them should they catch on fire.

Somehow, turning fire stations into condos seems far creepier than the trend ten years ago that converted many churches into residences.

Community leaders were upset by the move. (Those nuts! Who can figure them outer borough people out anyway?) To placate then, City Hall said it was setting up Community Steering Committees to determine the future of the firehouses. "The process of using community steering committees to determine the future use of decommissioned firehouses is collaborative," said mayoral spokesman John Gallagher. "It will result in uses for these properties that best meet the needs of the communities where they're located."

Like condos, right?