Police Chief Brendan Cox listens as Mayor Kathy Sheehan fields questions on Saturday about incidents a day prior that left 10 people with gunshot wounds and a building destroyed by fire in Albany.

Ian Macks, who lives a few doors down from 333 Madison Ave., looks at the aftermath, on Sunday from a fire that happened on Friday during a chaotic July Fourth in Albany. The building at 333 Madison Ave. was destroyed after someone shot a flare gun into a window and will be demolished. The Madison Grille, which has been closed, was demolished on Saturday due to the destruction.

The Fourth of July fireworks should be one of Albany’s great annual events, a feel-good night of celebration and community. It should be a day when Albany asserts itself as the center of the region, the place you want to be.

But this year’s Fourth ended up being something far different: a night of violence and chaos, a black eye, a symbol of the ways the city is broken.

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Four people, including a 64-year-old woman, were shot a block from where thousands gathered Friday for the Empire State Plaza fireworks. The four were bystanders, people whose only mistake was heading out to celebrate the holiday.

But they happened to be in the wrong place, on Madison Avenue at about 10 p.m., when a fool fired a flare gun, setting a three-story home ablaze, and somebody else responded with bullets from a handgun. Videos from the scene, widely distributed........

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