Fire scars tight-knit NY community

New York

EVEN on a nose-numbingly cold morning, families were out on the sidewalks around Prospect Avenue. A mother tugged a beanie over her squiggling son's ears, and girls ran down the block. They were trailed by a boy towing a wagon filled from a trip to the store, his younger brother wedged in with produce and paper towels.

For as long as brick apartment buildings have loomed over Prospect Avenue, this pocket of the Bronx called Belmont has been dominated by working-class families, many of them drawn from around the world to the promise of New York City.

A century ago, they came from Italy - Belmont was where chandelier makers, tailors and the workers who built the Bronx Zoo, just a block over, raised their children. These days, more of the young people zipping …