Resolution Audio's Brooklyn Headquarters Spared from Fire But Nonetheless Suffered Severe Smoke and Water Damage

Go Fund Me Project underway to help

Resolution Audio's 7500 square foot hi-fi / smart home facility in Brooklyn recently experienced a 5-alarm fire—or more specifically the entire building was hit one way or another. While the fire did not spread directly to Adam Wexler's retail space (spotlit in a June post), there was water and smoke damage caused by the fire, which burned for more than 24 hours. 

On September 23rd, DeVore Audio's John DeVore organized a Go Fund Me campaign to help Wexler and his business get back to normal. On the Go Fund Me page DeVore writes: "Adam has told me clearly that he would prefer people purchase things from Resolution A/V as a sign of support instead of donating cash, but I'm going to say right now that he will need all the help he can get to rebuild his 7500 ft showroom, warehouse, and offices. While the 150 year old building is still standing, and the fire did not reach his space, it has been utterly devastated inside by smoke and the seawater the fire boats pumped in for over 24 hours. He still does not yet know when he can get back into his showroom, offices, and warehouse, but as soon as he is allowed.. he will begin rebuilding."

At the time of the fire Resolution Audio Video had more than 40 custom home-install projects under way and those will hopefully continue. Meanwhile, Wexler says the loss was "in the millions of dollars". While Wexler says he's "fully insured", exactly what that means remains to be seen.

Wexler recently emailed bringing me up to date:

"Everything in our 7500 sft space is now covered in mold. Millions in gear and frankly everything F'd Up. Among that? My record collection of 30+ years. Thousands growing mold. No...I didn't have it cataloged...now even starting to try to catalog in retrospect I'm going to easily hit $100K+. I need to figure out what to present to insurance. Most records now are moldy and stuck together and impossible to retrieve from my space."

He sent some pre-fire photos of records, tapes and a R2R recorder now damaged probably beyond reconditioning. I told him I'd restored for a reader a selection of his moldy flood damaged stuck together records using a hand held steamer and that once the records were salvaged he could go on Discogs and buy trashed records in good jackets for very little money. However, I'm sure he's got more important things on his mind right now.

I recently upgraded my insurance to include itemized and catalogued lists of specific gear to be protected from what I hope never happens. Adding such insurance was costly but what's peace of mind and financial protection worth to you? On the other hand I'm realistic about insurance companies: they are happy to take your money and fight you all the way when you submit a claim.