A Senseless Fire and the Stranger Who Put It Out

The firefighters were gone, the police were on their way, and all around was the aftermath of whatever had happened a couple hours ago. Sabrina Rudin and her father peered at a video on her phone’s screen for some clue.

She’d opened the Spring Cafe Aspen on West 4th Street in Greenwich Village three years ago, a bright corner spot for fresh juices, coffee, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sidewalk seating, huge windows, lots of flowers beneath an aqua awning.

But now, early on the morning of May 17, the place was a wreck. A plate-glass window was shattered by the heat, the awning above scorched and melted. Flower arrangements, burned crisp. Inside the cafe, a film of white chemical from fire extinguishers covered the countertops, the floor, the fruit and vegetables.

The fire, they learned that morning, had been intentionally set by a man passing by. There he was on the video; he pulls something out of a trash can, lights it on fire, then holds the flame against a flower box mounted outside the cafe. The fire catches on the box and races upward.

Since the pandemic, things hadn’t felt the same in the neighborhood, where Ms. Rudin lived with her husband and young children. And now this.