Korean Job Discussion Forums

[PEIGUY]

This time it looks like the Concierge store and back maybe just down from the Hamilton.

http://10mag.com/itaewon-fire-takes-out-a-block-of-itaewons-main-street/

[Smithington]

I'd say it's either the AES trying to burn down Itaewon, or developers getting creative. Honestly, something is up in Itaewon. Remember a couple of years ago those juicy bars burned down up Hooker Hill? Well, I hadn't been up there since but a couple of weeks ago I walked up out of boredom. I was amazed to see a huge hotel already built on the site of the fire. The developers didn't waste a moment. In a couple more years the hill will start to be transformed like other parts of Itaewon.

There does seem to be a lot of suspicious fires in the 'won. A year or two ago I was sitting on the roof of Nashvilles on a Sunday when smoke and fire became visible. One of the bars across the street had caught fire - at five in the afternoon on a Sunday.

Curious.

[augustine]

[Underwaterbob]

Itaewon has hit some kind of weird indistinct medium between scummy clubbing, eating and shopping district. It's definitely not as low-brow as it used to be, but also still quite far from high-brow. Lost in some mediocre purgatory.

It is still the only place in Korea that I know of to get a nice plate of hummus.

[Mr. BlackCat]

[dairyairy]

So it's the timing that makes it suspicious? Monday morning in the A.M. would mean few people around so the building(s) burn but no one gets hurt? Obviously we've had discussions on many threads about how the properties in that area are changing owners, and tenants, and maybe someone wanted to make a quick killing on their fire insurance. Who knows for sure?

But any fire at any time is dangerous. Those buildings in Itaewon are right on top of each other, plus many are very old and made of wood or other cheap material. Who knows if any buildings in Itaewon have: sprinklers, working fire extinguishers, or functioning emergency exits? Plus, who knows about the connections made for the gas lines and when they were last checked? Whatever caused this fire needs to be investigated and it needs to be taken more seriously than that fire that was simply blamed on a drunken soldier. People could die, even at 7 A.M. on a Monday morning.

[Harpeau]

VIP is burned out and the Concierge (Apple) store as well.
I've gor some photos- pretty intense!
My guess is
A) some S@msung thug
B) Insurance game
C) bad gas valve
D) Bad electricity
E) a cigarette

..just guessing.

[cdninkorea]

[jvalmer]

It's a well know 'secret' that a lot of the big corporations do hire gang-thugs to do their dirty work. Dirty work being forcing people out of buildings they want to develop, and possibly starting fires on land they want to re-develop, and breaking up strikes. Tons of Korean movies touch on this subject. Still a lot of that 1920's style headbusting shenanigans going on here.

[augustine]

I walked around the area earlier today just to see if my work paid off. I didn't see too much damage, just a bunch of cops lazing around as usual and it felt like more of a construction site than a place that had recently caught fire. I couldn't even tell where the fire had been. God, the strip behind the Hamilton becomes more of a fancy beast every time I go back there, though. There were also a million cops all up Namsan Park street today for some anti-Japanese protest, from what I could tell. The traffic was insane. Saw more K-cops doing nothing today than I could have ever imagined.

[KimchiNinja]