Fatal fire in Collegtown Thursday night

[David Harding]

The building at 107 Cook St burned Thursday night, leaving one student dead.  The student was Brian Lo, a senior Hotelie, from East Rockaway.  The main Ithaca Journal report says that the preliminary thinking is that the fire started accidentally in a communal kitchen.  A comparably sized story contrasts the fire scene Friday with the end-of-classes/Slope Day parties in the surrounding blocks.  The Sun had a parallel story.  Lots of photos of the burned out building here.

[David Harding]

Another old Collegetown house burns, just down the street from the fire on Cook Street a few years ago.   http://www.ithacajournal.com/article/20140314/NEWS/303140004/Fire-damages-Ithaca-residence-no-one-hurt
This one hits very close to home, since it is the house I grew up in, 1955-1978.

[nyc94]

I saw the thread title and thought someone died in this latest fire. Ithaca Journal says no injuries.

[Scersk '97]

My condolences. As a frequent passerby my senior year, and having been inside the house on occasion to visit a friend, I appreciated its beauty more than once.

[billhoward]

I saw the thread title and thought someone died in this latest fire. Ithaca Journal says no injuries.

Same thought here when I didn't check the date of the first post. I thought it was unusual that it again involved a hotel major and a cooking fire and that made me go back to look at the datestamp. It must be hard as landlords to keep smoke alarms working because the tendency of the tenant is to pull the batteries once cooking sets off the alarm a couple times. At least good alarms now have a 10-minute-silence button. We have a son in an apartment in Boston and first thing we had to do was put in light bulbs in the emergency back exit stair lights. All four floors had none working. That I think is the landlord's or property agent's fault. Install incandescents and they burn out every 4-6 months. If you put in lasts-forever LED bulbs, I assume they'd get stolen. Maybe CFLs.