Construction Maison

In January 2015, a massive fire in Edgewater, N.J., demonstrated that buildings with sprinkler systems are not always protected against fire. The blaze destroyed 240 residential apartments and displaced 500 people from the Edgewater Avalon apartment building . The fire began when a maintenance worker’s plumbing torch accidentally ignited wooden wall studs , and flames quickly spread throughout the structure. Fifteen minutes passed before workers called the fire department . In that time, the fire spread throughout combustible void spaces (between walls and floors) and soon engulfed the building. Emergency personnel from 35 different cities and towns ultimately responded to the incident. Thankfully, there were no fatalities. Immediately after the blaze, people asked why the fire was so devastating. The building had sprinklers, after all. Shouldn’t the sprinkler system have extinguished the fire? To make matters worse , this building had already burned down 15 years prior during i...

Local investors beware: Central Pennsylvania is on the map for outside groups looking for higher returns. Last month, The Solomon Organization , a New Jersey-based operator of multifamily properties, closed on a $25.7 million purchase of the newly built Ivy Ridge Apartments in Swatara Township . That price — $117,913 per unit — is the highest in the Harrisburg market this year. It also marked the company's first foray into the Harrisburg area after landing in Lancaster County six years ago. It owns six communities in Lancaster County and more than 1,200 units. "Two years ago, you said 'Harrisburg' and people would just hang up the phone," said Zachary Pierce, director of the National Multi Housing Group in Philadelphia for Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services . Outside investors were interested only in primary markets such as New York City and Washington, D.C., and maybe Philadelphia, he said. But as prices have shot up in those prime areas, th...

MADRID (AP) -- The Latest on the investigation into the Spain attacks (all times local):6:55 p.m. The imam of Madrid's main mosque has condemned the deadly attacks last week in and near Barcelona. He says that "those who carry out this kind of act represent neither Islam nor Muslims." During Friday prayers , Housam Khoja spoke in Arabic and Spanish so that everybody could understand his condemnation. The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks that killed 15 people. After Friday's ceremony in the Spanish capital , the director of the Islamic Cultural Center , Sami El Mushtawi , insisted that Islam is a peaceful religion and apologized for the acts of a few Muslims. He also pleaded for tolerance, saying that in recent days Muslims have been assaulted in Madrid, Granada and elsewhere. Spain had almost 2 million Muslim residents at the end of last year, most of them Spaniards. --- 2:40 p.m. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says he will pr...

Rochester has the second-highest gap in homeownership rates across races in the country, a new report shows. When measuring homeownership rates in the 50 largest metro areas nationwide , Apartment List found that in Rochester 70.1 percent of white households own their homes, compared with 21.2 percent for black households, 35.6 percent for Hispanic households and 48 percent for Asian households. Rochester’s 37. 1 percent average gap in homeownership rates across races was second behind Buffalo, where the gap is 40.5 percent. In Buffalo, the white homeownership rate is 67.8 percent, while the average homeownership rate across minority races is just 27.3 percent, according to the report. Utilizing data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Apartment List also found that Rochester is the third least diverse metro of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas . On a national level, the report found that 64.4 percent of white households are homeowners, compared with 54 percent of Asian house...

(CN) – Hurricane Harvey appeared to be taking dead aim at Corpus Christi Friday morning , where officials encouraged residents to evacuate, as the storm intensifies . Weather forecasters worry that the storm may stall when it hits land, and could dump as much as 35 inches of rain in places, which would be disastrous. While the evacuation of Corpus Christi was voluntary Thursday, authorities in Port Aransas, Rockport and Calhoun County have ordered mandatory evacuations . Harvey, now a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of more than 80 mph, is intensifying rapidly and is forecast to be a major hurricane with winds of 125 mph – making it nearly a Category 4 storm – by the time it hits the Texas coast Friday night or early Saturday. The hurricane could bring catastrophic storm surge flooding and life-threatening rainfall and wind hazards to parts of the Texas coast, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday. Harvey would be the first hurricane to make landfa...

Author John Freeman Gill takes Fodor’s on an urban safari. If you make the effort to gaze skyward in New York, you will discover (hiding in plain sight) a city teeming with remarkable architectural sculptures : gryphons and sea monsters, cherubs and pelicans, goddesses and kings. These exuberantly expressive artworks were the creation of gifted immigrant stone carvers who poured into New York in the late 19th and early 20th centuries , most of them from the British Isles, Germany, and Italy. The ornament on the grandest edifices was typically specified by architects, but on the vast majority of city buildings , the design of the carvings was left up to the individual stoneworker. The carvers took this freedom and ran with it, incising their imaginations into New York’s skyline and transforming its streetscape into a marvelously quirky public art gallery . 555 Washington Avenue John Freeman Gill Ever since my novel, The Gargoyle Hunters , was published, I’ve been besieged by readers a...

Regeni was undeterred. Proficient in five languages, he was insatiably curious and exuded a low-intensity charm that attracted a wide circle of friends. From 12 to 14, he served as youth mayor of his hometown, Fiumicello. He prided himself on his ability to navigate different cultures, and he relished Cairo ’s unruly street life : the smoky cafes, the endless hustle, the candy- colored party boats that plied the Nile at night. He registered as a visiting scholar at American University in Cairo and found a room in Dokki, a traffic-choked neighborhood between the Pyramids and the Nile, where he shared an apartment with two young professionals : Juliane Schoki, who taught German, and Mohamed El Sayad , a lawyer at one of Cairo’s oldest law firms . Dokki was an unfashionable address, but it was just two subway stops from downtown Cairo with its maze of cheap hotels, dive bars and crumbling apartment blocks encircling Tahrir Square . Regeni soon befriended writers and artists and practi...