Pyrolatry

One very cool thing about the East Village is that it's close to Chinatown. That wasn't always the case, but Chinatown keeps growing. It's even making its way into the East Village!

This is not the East Village though. This is Chinatown, on Hester Street, just west of Essex Street:

Buddhist burning ceremony.

I don't think it was incense they were burning — that's a much hotter flame than is necessary for burning incense. Also, it didn't smell like incense. I'm sure it was part of some ceremony though. I think every religion incorporates some form of pyrolatry.

You can see their furnace was surrounded by traffic barrels and cones. I'm sure they appropriated them from a local construction site. You can see some in the background, on the right.