City of Fires: The True Story of New York’s Forgotten Arson War

In the 1970s, entire blocks of the South Bronx burned while the rest of New York City looked the other way. City of Fires is the unflinching, deeply researched true story of how deliberate neglect, institutional betrayal, and a brutal calculus of profit over people turned working-class neighborhoods into charred war zones. This isn’t a story of natural decay or “urban blight.” It’s a history of arson-for-profit schemes, city-sanctioned abandonment, and a government that turned a blind eye—sometimes on purpose.
Told through the voice of a lifelong New Yorker who lived through the fire decade, City of Fires pulls back the curtain on the real causes of the South Bronx infernos. It dives deep into the dirty logic of RAND Corporation planning, the quiet compliance of insurance companies, and the shameless rebranding of destruction into “revitalization.” It traces the money, the cover-ups, and the lives lost—not just to flames, but to policy.
From the first flames in the late '60s to the silent theft of land in the ’90s, City of Fires names names and follows the trail. But it also highlights the people who resisted: tenant unions, squatters, and local heroes who rebuilt their blocks by hand, often while the city tried to shut them down. This is a history they tried to bury. We dug it back up.