Last weekend, the rains were coming down on the Lower East Side, but the sun came out during the afternoon on Saturday. Outside of my apartment, I saw some bizarre cloud cover filling the neighborhood, and the permeating smell of woodsmoke.





The Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Synagogue was on fire...





Curbed has some fantastic photography of the interior of the synagogue.

I had take some interesting photos of my own over the winter.

and after...

Apparently, there is a teen already charged for starting the fire, but it's valuable real estate right in the middle of one of the biggest redevelopment projects in Manhattan, so I'm a bit skeptical that he acted on his own.