Perspective: Tear Down Abandoned Buildings
An especially awful thing about that tragedy is that it did not have to happen. That building did not have to be there. It was abandoned, sitting there empty for three years, waiting for those firemen to come in and die.
The building should have been torn down before it took their lives and devastated their families and angered and frightened all firefighters who are wondering tonight who is next to be called into a deathtrap.
Whose children will be next to lose a parent, all of a sudden, just like that – off to work one morning, never to come home, ever -- because of an abandoned building?
Stop it, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Governor, Mr. Alderman, Mr. Lawyers, Mr. Judges. Stop the paper-work and the hearings and court orders. Tear down abandoned buildings. Stop spending our money on flowers and wrought-iron fences and bidding on Olympics and building another runway at O'Hare.
Spend it on wrecking equipment and people to use it. For the price of an aldermanic expense account, just one expense account, you can tear down several abandoned buildings.
That's not hard to understand, is it? Why is it so hard for you to do it?
