On the corner of 2nd Avenue and East 7th Street, all that's left after a gas explosion is a patch of dirt. Two people were killed in the blast. And dozens have been displaced, including master puppet builder Matthew Brooks.
Brooks has built puppets for The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland and Muppet Treasure Island, as well as the series Crank Yankers. But what he's most proud of is a show he had begun shooting in his apartment that he called The Prana Piranha Show. It's about a self-help guru trying to make it on public television. Now his studio, lighting and equipment are gone.
Brooks, 50, is a freelancer and is currently building puppets for a secret project at the Jim Henson Puppet Workshop in Long Island City, Queens.
"I often think that when a person here is building a puppet, that oftentimes the puppet reflects their current state of mind," he said, nodding to a bird-like creature with one arm and one eye. "This guy on my desk looks kind of disheveled and messed up and confused...he's kinda beat up."
Brooks moved in to his rent-controlled apartment in the East Village in 1992. He describes himself as a pack rat and his former apartment as a "strange museum."
"People would always tell me, 'Oh you can never leave this place, its amazing, it's huge,'" he said. "When you hear that it's like, 'I guess you’re right, I can never leave this place.'"
In addition to thousands of dollars worth of puppets, art and materials in his apartment, there was also a tortoise shell cat with a scratchy voice named Sylvie.
"She was my wife’s constant companion when my wife was working on her thesis project. That cat was always there on her lap keeping her company," Brooks said.
Sylvie didn't survive the fire.
He said people have been asking him if there's anything redeeming about losing all of his worldly possessions. "I would never choose to lose all of my things that way," he replies. "I think that it’s probably good for me to be out of that apartment because I'd lived there so long. I have no choice now, I have to move on."
Brooks is staying at friend's house in Bushwick. And soon he'll head to Portland, Oregon, for a freelance gig. After that, he doesn't know where he'll be, but it probably won't be in the East Village.
And he has already rebuilt his piranha puppet from memory and is ready to continue shooting his series.
