A colleague of mine had to be evacuated from her Manhattan apartment this week after the underground car park was flooded. Two days later, the blog of the Residents of 90 West Street (interestingly, they call it “Forum”) was born, and it is not the only one; previously blogging residents of the house also took up the topic, creating a community of people who hardly knew each other before, even if they lived in a house before. Information is exchanged and questions are discussed, for example whether the rent is now due if you are not allowed into the apartment and also have to advance the costs for the hotel. The exciting question is whether this community can be maintained if the emergency situation no longer welds those affected together. But nowhere is it written that communities must last forever.