joseph11 is nervous that a house fire on Classon and St. Marks is a sign of bad times to come.
“I hope that building owners aren’t starting fires because they cant sell them,” he writes.  Naturally this begets a discussion on other signs of what the failing economy will do to the neighborhood.  whynot_31 wonders “what will become of all these [WaMU] branches? You can only have so many bars called ‘The Vault’. Surely, we are going to have to be more creative.”
And a list of potential uses for former WaMu branches follows:

1. Meat lockers
2. Saunas
3. Opaque Fish Tanks
4. Rent-a-Jails
5. Day cares
6. places to cry alone in the event that McCain wins.
7. Places to make love if Obama wins.
8. Sets for magicians/escape artists to do their tricks.
9. Hardware stores? All the little drawers could hold bolts, screws and such.
10. places to hold a “free party” for Republicans from PA and OH on November 3.
11. places to announce that “due to the pending takeover of WaMu by
Chase, we have encountered a temporary lapse of service on our remote
lock release contract. We expect the doors to open at the stroke of
midnight, November 6th. Please enjoy Caahyoko’s fish and all the
vintage WaMu pens in the meantime.”

Add to the list at Prospect Heights Message Board: This Gets Me Nervous (Brooklynian.com)