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Article snippet: Even on a nose-numbingly cold morning, families were out on the sidewalks around Prospect Avenue. A mother tugged a beanie over her squiggling son’s ears, and girls ran down the block. They were trailed by a boy towing a wagon filled from a trip to the store, his younger brother wedged in with produce and paper towels. For as long as brick apartment buildings have loomed over Prospect Avenue, this pocket of the Bronx called Belmont has been dominated by working-class families, many of them drawn from around the world to the promise of New York City. A century ago, they came from Italy — Belmont was where chandelier makers, tailors and the workers who built the Bronx Zoo, just a block over, raised their children. These days, more of the young people zipping by on scooters or walking to class at the public school around the corner have families with roots in Puerto Rico, Jamaica or West Africa. When a fire tore through one of the buildings late on Thursday, killing 12 people, children were at the heart of the tragedy that has shaken the neighborhood. The fire was started by a 3-year-old boy playing with burners on a stove, the authorities said. The youngest victims were 8 months, 2 years and 7 years old. The inferno, the deadliest in New York in more than 25 years, roared through the brown five-story building at 2363 Prospect Avenue as neighbors cooked dinner and shopkeepers around the corner closed up at the end of the day. Some said they smelled the smoke before ... Link to the full article to read more