Born in flames The business of arson and the remaking of the American city

Historian Ansfield debuts with a riveting and meticulous chronicle of the wave of arsons-for-profit that burned through America's cities in the 1970s. The book focuses on the Bronx, which notoriously lost around 20% of its housing stock, though Ansfield argues that the borough is "exemplary" of a lesser-known arson epidemic that devastated neighborhoods of color across the country. Dispelling the racist myth that residents set the fires themselves, the author traces the confluence of financial factors that motivated absentee landlords to burn their neglected, deteriorating properties. These factors included high-cost, low-coverage state-sponsored insurance policies that debuted following the racial uprisings of the 1960s (when insurance companies abandoned "riot-affected areas"); insurance companies' newfound practice of investing customer premiums for profit, which further inflated premiums to astronomical heights; and city budget cuts that decimated the FDNY. Ansfield shows how "the spoils of arson were manifest"--one arsonist landlord cruised the South Bronx in a pink Cadillac--and movingly conveys the "immense psychic toll" living among the fires took on tenants who, as they tracked the conflagrations' block-by-block progress, fearfully went to bed with their shoes on; some were even burned out of more than one apartment. The book also unearths the tenant-organized activism, in collaboration with local officials and even some of the insurance companies themselves, that finally ended the fires. The result is an outstanding exposé of the predatory capitalist machinations behind the "Bronx is burning" saga. (Aug.)

The Bronx was burning. Insurers and landlords supplied the fuel. This young historian's superlative debut substantially upgrades our understanding of notorious crimes that unnerved American cities a half century ago. Fire insurance is not often associated with gripping narratives, but as Ansfield demonstrates, discriminatory gaps in coverage incited a deadly, protracted spectacle "from Boston to Seattle." In the 1970s, "a wave of landlord arson" struck numerous urban neighborhoods, most conspicuously the Bronx. Fires and related issues claimed a staggering 20% of the borough's housing stock, displacing thousands and killing as many as 300 New Yorkers a year. Terrified residents slept in their shoes, packed suitcases nearby. The destruction had deep roots, Ansfield explains. Insurance companies, increasingly focused on fast-growing suburbs, sped the pace of their "decades-long withdrawal from U.S. cities" after predominantly Black 1960s "rebellions" in Detroit, Newark, and Los Angeles. In response, federal and state governments instituted a public-private insurance plan dubbed FAIR (Fair Access to Insurance Requirements). In this period, FAIR policies were haphazardly granted, and many properties were insured for far more than their market value. Crooked landlords cashed in, hiring impoverished locals to burn buildings and teaming up to run "an arson-for-hire business out of a Bronx storefront." One arson ring burned 250 buildings, collecting millions in payouts before they were caught. The problem was worsened by deregulation and accompanying shifts in the economic system, which spurred disinvestment in cities and reshaped the insurance industry, with companies making much of their money by investing customer premiums in stock, bond, and money markets. The 1970s Bronx fires were frequently blamed on tenants, a relatively small number of whom did commit arson, Ansfield writes. But this excellent book delivers the truth about "the burning years." A vital history of racial discrimination in the insurance market--and the fires that followed. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.