Born in Flames, by Bench Ansfield

The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the WZ Book Club. I'm Jordan Rich with
news of a new release called Born in Flames, The
Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City.
The author is Bench Ansfield. We traveled back a half
a century where discrimination in the area of fire insurance
caused havoc, with destructive arson happening in major cities from
Boston to Seattle. Much of the arson was created by landlords,

(00:22):
and in the book the author focuses mainly on the Bronx.
Fires took nearly twenty percent of the borough's housing stock,
killed as many as three hundred New Yorkers a year,
and displaced thousands from their homes. All of this while
insurance companies were involved in a quote decades long withdrawal
from US cities. The government at the time tried to
step in and right the wrongs, but as this new

(00:42):
book points out, Arsoniston crooks found ways to game the system,
and being in the business of arson for hire, especially
in the Bronx, well that was pretty lucrative. Born in Flames,
The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American
City by historian Bench Ansfield, The book Club WZ Boston
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