The fire that wrecked this four-unit apartment building on Fayetteville’s Betty Jo Drive happened more than a year and a half ago (I first mentioned it in a blog post here). It’s still standing there. Why it hasn’t been torn down is something of a neighborhood mystery.

As I wrote in a story running in today’s paper,

The doors and windows are gone. The rear walls are little more than charred studs, while jagged holes have been punched in the front. The blue threads of an old shredded tarp stretch like cobwebs across holes in the roof.

The story’s pretty interesting; basically the owners, who bought it after the fire, haven’t violated any city code yet and still plan to renovate the building. Financing has just been more difficult to come by than expected, for a few reasons.

Meanwhile this skeleton of eight people’s home waits.

This is the second time they’ve let me take photos for the paper — the first time was also a fire. I wonder if there’s a pattern here.

Thanks for looking,

Dan