Fiery Nightmares for Terre Haute

Grant | April 24, 2015 | NEWS, Too Much to Ask | No Comments

Pop some popcorn, grab your celebratory six-pack, and don’t forget your blanket, there’s a fire in the Terre Haute Avenues! And what a spectacle it was tonight when only three blocks away from where I live a fire broke out at the warehouse better known as the Shattered Nightmares haunted house. The police and fire department responded to the scene and blocked off the streets leading to the warehouse. The Avenue people promptly set up camp and theorized arson, as they puffed away on their Pyramid cigarettes. I even heard one man proclaim “This is the second fire this week! Prolly it’s arson.” To that you could hear grunts of agreement all around. Yes, probably arson. And what a good job those theoretical arsons did, as you can see in the video I took below.

The fire department contained the fire and now investigation will ensue. Needless to say, Indiana State University will be happy to see the speculative value of this property go down. If they don’t jump on it, one of our fantastic property tycoons (Gibson, Hulman, Ellis, and the list goes on!) will likely be eager to purchase the property. But who knows? Maybe the owners Robert and Nancy Durr want to do something fun with it, like turn it into yet another towing service yard!

What will become of this burned building? It certainly drew attention to a neglected part of town. In light of that, I was surprised the police and fire departments responded so quickly. Generally, the city shows little interest in this part of town. But then, do you blame them? When you think of the Avenues, what honestly comes to mind?

When I see my fellow residents come out of their diminished housing like zombies so that they can watch a spectacle such as the one in the video, I realize that I live amongst the oppressed

So I just want to take a moment to have you, my fellow Hautians, ponder the wealth disparity in Terre Haute. Our city is a microcosm of the nation, a wealthy few feeding (nay, perhaps feasting!) on the poor via high rent and low wages and a number of other means. When I see my fellow residents come out of their diminished housing like zombies so that they can watch a spectacle such as the one in the video, I realize that I live amongst the oppressed and that is what I truly took away from this experience. I do not feel pity for the unfortunate (after the insurance claim, probably fortunate) owners of the warehouse, I feel pity for my fellow Hautians. I could go on for chapters about the discrimination against the poor, but how about I end it here with a request: that the rentier-class, the wealthy, stop the needless oppression of the poor in order to fill their pockets and pad their investments. I would request that the state, county, and city governments stop giving money in the form of tax subsidies and TIF investments to corporations (yes I’m looking at you WalMart!) instead of investing in the infrastructure that helps the wage slaves like myself get to work.

Is it really too much to ask? “Prolly so.”