The fire that stole ten lives in Highbridge earlier this month left its scars.
On the Soumares and Magassas, two immigrant families from West Africa. On a community, a culture, a city. On the nation of Mali, thousands of miles and an ocean away from New York City.

It is unlikely that anyone who witnessed Aissa Magassa and two of her children jumping out of their window to escape the flames; or firefighters carrying dead children from 1022 Woodycrest Avenue; or the bitter tears of Mamadou Soumare as he watched his entire immediate family being taken away from the Islamic Cultural Center in caskets,  will ever forget these images. 

“It was really heartbreaking,” said Anderson Avenue resident Ijo Meikle, speaking the day after the fire. “It’s the first time something in this community something so bad [happened]. Nobody in this neighborhood can live this down for a long time.”

Standing a few days later in front of the building where the fatal blaze occurred, Carl L. Williams, a member of the Woodycrest United Methodist Church, echoed Meikle’s sentiment. Like several other local residents interviewed by the Horizon in the past two  weeks, Williams compared the events of March 7, 2007 to other devastating events in the recent history of New York City.  

“This is the only event that happened here,” said Williams, who has lived in the community for 27 years. “9/11 was in downtown Manhattan. If you were working in the area or knew people in that area, then it affected you. It hurt me even though I lived here. But a lot of this neighborhood up here, it didn’t affect them.”

Edmond Zongo and Mohammed Waziri, who work at Super Star Grocery on Ogden Avenue, had grown accustomed to seeing the Soumare and Magassa children returning home from school during the week, and on their way to the Islamic Cultural Center on East 166 Street on Saturdays and Sundays. The children liked to buy Wise Onion Rings, ice cream, candy, and juices. Sometimes, they asked for a quarter to play arcade games at the Blue and White Laundromat down the street.

Now, like so many other neighborhood residents,  Zongo and Waziri are forced to confront the reality of absence.

In his store, Zongo keeps an issue of the New York Daily News featuring an article about the Soumare and Magassa families’ lives in Mali. Looking at the accompanying photos, Zongo sees loss and pain staring back at him. “Everybody looks mad,” he says.
“Everybody was shocked in this neighborhood, unless they had no conscience,” Waziri adds. “That was a big accident, and we don’t want it to happen again.”

But beneath the shared wounds of a grief-stricken community, many in Highbridge feel,  the heart and soul of the neighborhood has been revealed.  India Echevarria, a family support worker at the Highbridge Community Life Center, was at 164th Street and Anderson Avenue on the night of March 7 when she and her friends began to smell smoke emanating from the nearby fire. By the end of the night, she was one of several people watching helplessly as firefighters and civilians tried in vain to save the lives of nine children and one adult.

The scene recalled awful memories for Echevarria; she happened to be living across the street from the Happyland Social Club in the east Bronx when the club was burned down in 1990, killing 87 people. 

The morning after the more recent fire, she was still struggling to process her thoughts, when a man walked into the Highbridge Community Life Center storefront on Ogden Avenue and asked to borrow a marker; he wanted to write a message of condolences for the Soumare and Magassa families.

The  request provided Echevarria with the inspiration to set up a memorial for the victims of the fire. Along with her youngest daughter, Shaquana, and Chauncy Young— an education activist and co-worker at the storefront—  she began placing candles and teddy bears outside 1022 Woodycrest Avenue. Next came several sheets of posterboard where residents of Highbridge could express their thoughts to the victims’ families.

Within days, sheets full of memories and farewell wishes blanketed the fencing in front of three consecutive houses on Woodycrest Avenue, between 164th and 165th Streets; the posterboard filled up so fast that Young had to start taping to the fences the reverse sides of signs he had used at education rallies.

Six water jugs were laid out at the memorial site to collect donations from the neighborhood.   In the poorest congressional district in the United States, residents together raised, within days, more than $26,000 for victims of the fire.

“The poorest would give their last dollar,” Williams said. “Young kids, giving their little coin into the cup.”

Of course, the surge of unity and the outpouring of support displayed in the aftermath of the fire cannot be measured merely with numbers — monetary or otherwise.
Hellos and goodbyes have expanded into more personal conversations.  Faces in the neighborhood, seen for years at a relative distance— passing by on the way to work, then fading from sight— have now become tangible. Up close. Alive.

“I just think it’s a shame that we have so many issues in our neighborhood and it took a tragedy to bring us together,” said Wanda Smith, a parent association member at P.S. 73, echoing the words of many of her neighbors.

Williams suggested the caring, giving spirit manifested in the aftermath of the fire did not originate overnight. “It was always there,” Williams said. “But it took something like this to bring us together.”

One dimension of the strengthened bonds between Highbridge residents has been cultural. As people in the community of all backgrounds have gathered to pay their respects to the victims, those outside Islamic and West African traditions and those inside these traditions have received increased exposure to one another.

 Through visiting a mosque for the first time, or eating a traditional Malian meal at a neighbor’s home, or simply having conversations and asking questions, many who live in the neighborhood say they have learned a lot about the commonalities—and differences—between Christianity and Islam; between Malian, African-American, and Latino cultures.

Carmen Saez, of 1030 Woodycrest Avenue, said that before the fire, she had socialized with Muslims but had never been inside the home of a Muslim neighbor.  In recent days, she has interacted in a more sustained way with her neighbors across the street, some of whom are related to the victims. Saez said she acquired new knowledge about Islamic burial procedures—for example, that caskets are supposed to be positioned facing Mecca in order for the deceased to go to heaven. She also suggested some universality between Christianity and Islam.

“They call him Allah, we call him Dios,” Saez said, “but we say it’s the same person.”
On the Monday of the funeral service for the ten victims, Echevarria accompanied a group of community residents inside the Islamic Cultural Center. It was the first time any of them had entered a mosque. Echevarria, who is Catholic, described her experience there as “peaceful” and “pure.”

More generally, she said her exposure to West African and Islamic cultures has affected her in a powerful way. “I was like ‘Wow!’” she said. “ I was impressed. You don’t realize how strong that culture is. It’s such a bond. The bond is not just family members. Not just blood related. It’s the whole Islamic community coming together.”

Echevarria said the increased closeness she feels to her neighbors has been a two-way street; she proudly recalled being greeted recently with “Excuse me, my sister-Salaam Alaikum, [Peace be unto you], ” by an African man who thanked her for coordinating outreach and support to the Magassa and Soumare families.

As she sat in her office talking one afternoon, Young returned from a rally in Manhattan held to demand that the city’s school system give students the day off for two major Muslim holidays— Eid ul-Fit (the last day of the holy month of Ramadan) and Eid ul-Adha. 

How had the rally gone? Echevarria wanted to know.

It went well, Young informed her. But he added that several Muslims in attendance had been asking for her, inquiring where the “redhead” was, a reference to Echeverria’s trademark red-dyed hair.

“Oh, really?” Echevarria asked quietly, smiling. 

At once, she appeared both touched and saddened.