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Person

Bench Ansfield

Bylines

  • Young mother, St. Ann's Ave at E. 140th St., Bronx, 1977
    partner

    Life in the Firestorm

    The 21st century American city was forged in the embers of the 1970s arson wave.
    by Bench Ansfield via HNN on August 19, 2025
  • Abandoned and burned-out buildings in the East Village in 1986.

    Edifice Complex

    Restoring the term “burnout” to its roots in landlord arson puts the dispossession of poor city dwellers at its center.
    by Bench Ansfield via Jewish Currents on January 3, 2023
  • Image of army soldiers and weapons facing crowd of protestors holding signs

    A Theater of State Panic

    Beginning in 1967, the Army built fake towns to train police and military officers in counterinsurgency.
    by Bench Ansfield via New York Review of Books on September 16, 2022
  • A man shovels out the parking lot of an old factory buildingcovered in graffiti.
    partner

    How a 50-Year-Old Study Was Misconstrued to Create Destructive Broken-Windows Policing

    The harmful policy was built on a shaky foundation.
    by Bench Ansfield via Made By History on December 27, 2019
Book
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
Bench Ansfield
2025
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Related Excerpts

Viewing 1–1 of 1
An apartment building on fire.

Did Racial Capitalism Set the Bronx on Fire?

To some, the fires lit in New York in the late seventies signaled rampant crime; to others, rebellion. But maybe they were signs of something else entirely.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on August 18, 2025
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