Two buildings basically blew up this morning down the street at Park Avenue and E. 116th Street. I found this article in the NYT very moving, a tribute to the different kinds of lives lived in these old tenements. For more than a century, they blended into the background of Upper Manhattan life. Then, in an instant, they were wiped from the face of it. The two vintage tenements destroyed after an explosion on Wednesday had housed a storefront church, a piano store, and 15 modest apartments, mostly occupied by immigrants. I’m sure in their place some developer is already securing the right to build new luxury condos.