The first people on the scene today were shocked by the swift and pointless destruction. “Good morning. It’s a shame,” said the elderly man passing down Chester Street.

He motioned to the charred remnants of what would have been a new $16 million apartment complex for low-income seniors in this struggling East Baltimore community.

Except for two concrete pillars poking out of the ruins, the structure was destroyed. There wasn’t much more to say. The man kept on walking.

“That building was almost done,” observed a woman wearing a Department of Solid Waste uniform, part of a convoy of city crews that arrived early to clear the street of rubble and to manage traffic.

“This is so sad,” she said. “Look at that Bobcat over there. It is still smoking.”

Only a few church members were on hand to talk about what happened.

They said that Pastor Donte Hickman, whose Southern Baptist Church was building the senior home with the Woda Group, would arrive shortly to answer questions.

Normally a fire in this part of town, Broadway East, would attract little press coverage.

But because the fire appears to have been set by rioters, a scrum of media vehicles had stopped at the intersection of Gay, Lanvale and Chester streets to report their version of the Baltimore self-destruction story.

Setting up their cameras were networks representing countries where residents most probably know Baltimore only for HBO’s multi-season urban despair saga, “The Wire.”

The church’s parking lot quickly evolved into a staging area for national media as well as outlets from Austria, Poland, Denmark, Kurdistan and other countries.

Loss for the Community

When Rev. Hickman showed up a few hours later, there was such a media circus that he needed a handler with a notebook to manage the queries and interview requests.

He spoke to The Brew about how his church had lost an apartment building that was eight years in the making. “There were four towers, and we watched two of them fall last night,” he said.

The building, he went on, was named after the church’s founding layperson, Mary Harvin.

“It would have contained a community center, HIV testing center, counseling and recreation centers, and would provide life coaching as well as a place for residents’ grandchildren to play,” he explained.

But then Hickman got sidetracked.

The New York Times and CNN were there. A Polish television crew had just pulled up in a car.

The pastor’s staff politely promised they would get back in touch.

The Corner Store

Meanwhile, Mary, who lives on Castle Street and watched silently as the media engulfed her neighborhood, talked about losing the local corner store.

It was located next to the leveled apartment building and was severely damaged. Already a “condemned” sign was plastered across its front.

“I go to that store every day,” she lamented. “I cannot believe this.”

Leroy Bradford, a DPW worker who was cleaning up the debris from the fire, commented on the scene.

“I thought we were done with this,” he said. “I haven’t seen anything like this since 1968,” when riots took place in the same neighborhood after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Bradford, who was raised nearby, continued, “It’s not everybody like this. There are positive people trying to make Baltimore better. God has a plan. Sometimes it’s just hard to understand.”