From today's NY Times:

www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/nyregion/03fire.html

The speed of the blaze and the fact that it started just before dawn in abandoned buildings led investigators to suspect arson, said Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. The buildings were owned by Joshua Guttman, of Lawrence, N.Y., a real estate developer with a history of buying commercial properties and turning them into condominiums.

A lawyer for Mr. Guttman, Joseph Kosofsky, said the developer had no idea how the fire began. "It's the last thing in the world we need right now," he said. "He's a very substantial guy. If someone set fire to it, it could have been squatters, it could have been anybody. How in the hell can you watch 21 acres of industrial property?"

The fire area is a belt of formerly industrial, historic waterfront properties that are turning, one block at a time, into condominiums and apartments, bringing the young and affluent to the neighborhood. Mr. Guttman had acquired demolition permits for 4 of his 10 sites in the area and filed preliminary requests for 6 more on Monday, said Jennifer Givner, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Buildings.

The change in the neighborhood's population could be seen in the faces on the sidewalks staring up at the flames: old Polish women, young couples with their digital cameras, knots of Hasidic men. Everywhere there were firefighters, climbing into or out of their gear, and police officers. Blocks surrounding the fire were closed to cars and pedestrians. The fire stalled traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive in Manhattan as drivers slowed for a look.

From the Daily News ( www.nydailynews.com/front/story/414371p-350199c.html ):

The 21 acres - once home to the city's fifth-largest employer, American Manufacturing Company - are owned by six companies controlled by real estate bigwig Joshua Guttman and his son Jack Guttman. ...

The Guttmans keep a night watchman at the Greenpoint site but FDNY sources said the guard left at 2 a.m. yesterday.

In 2004, Joshua Guttman tried to have another Brooklyn building rezoned for luxury housing. He withdrew his application after the community board said it would not approve the plan.

The Water St. building burned down less than two weeks later. Though arson had been suspected, no one was ever charged. Kosofsky said the case was closed.

The Greenpoint fire was expected to burn two more days - and smolder much longer.

"It's a complex of 15 buildings," FDNY Assistant Chief Edward Kilduff said. "They're all gone."