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134-515: The Brooklyn Theatre fire was a catastrophic theatre fire that broke out on the evening of December 5, 1876, in the city of Brooklyn (now a borough of New York City ). The fire took place at the Brooklyn Theatre, near the corner of Washington and Johnson streets, with over 1,000 guests attending. The conflagration killed at least 278 individuals, with some accounts reporting more than 300 dead. 103 unidentified victims were interred in

268-496: A Pakistani enclave. Brooklyn's most populous racial group, white, declined from 97.2% in 1930 to 46.9% by 1990. The borough attracts people previously living in other cities in the United States. Of these, most come from Chicago , Detroit , San Francisco , Washington, D.C. , Baltimore , Philadelphia , Boston , Cincinnati , and Seattle . Given New York City's role as a crossroads for immigration from around

402-627: A common grave at Green-Wood Cemetery , marked by an obelisk, while more than two dozen identified victims were interred individually in separate sections at the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Theatre fire ranks third in fatalities among fires occurring in theatres and other public assembly buildings in the United States, behind the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire and the 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire . Fatalities mainly arose in

536-567: A humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ), with partial shielding from the Appalachian Mountains and moderating influences from the Atlantic Ocean . Brooklyn receives plentiful precipitation all year round, with nearly 50 in (1,300 mm) yearly. The area averages 234 days with at least some sunshine annually, and averages 57% of possible sunshine annually, accumulating 2,535 hours of sunshine per annum. Brooklyn lies in

670-448: A rigging loft, known as a fly system , a large wooden open frame equipped with the pulleys and tackle needed to raise or lower scenic elements. It was suspended high in the fly space or flies , the volume above the stage never seen by the audience. For a large production with many scene changes, the rigging loft could be heavily loaded with painted canvas. On the night of the fire, it contained drops and borders for The Two Orphans and

804-535: A 14-block area in 1890. On the southwestern waterfront of Kings County, railroads and industrialization spread to Sunset Park (then coterminous with the city's sprawling, sparsely populated Eighth Ward) and adjacent Bay Ridge (hitherto a resort-like subsection of the Town of New Utrecht ). Within a decade, the city had annexed the Town of New Lots in 1886; the Towns of Flatbush , Gravesend and New Utrecht in 1894; and

938-527: A child to the United States with his parents. His five-story building constructed for the New York Times at 41 Park Row , 1851 (or 1857–1858), was the first purpose-designed structure for a New York newspaper. His Italianate Grammar School 47 , East 12th Street, (1855) was one of the first American public schools designed expressly for girls. Jackson's Brooklyn Theater , Brooklyn ,

1072-673: A chronology of the disaster, and he said that the structure had better exits than many other public buildings in Brooklyn at that time. The theatre occupied an L-shaped lot, with the Proscenium theatre occupying the 127-by-70-foot (39 m × 21 m) wing fronting Johnson Street. The stage and scene doors opened onto Johnson Street from this wing. The scene doors were 20 ft wide (6.1 m), large enough to accommodate scenic flats and large props. The stage doors were smaller but could accommodate people carrying heavy loads. These Johnson Street doors were utilitarian and little used by

1206-425: A dazed sort of way and rushed into his dressing room, where the fire was even then raging ... To leap from the stage into the orchestra in the hope of getting out through the front of the house would only be to add one more to the frantic, struggling mass of human beings who were trampling each other to death like wild beasts." Claxton remembered that a private passage led from the leading lady's dressing room, through

1340-459: A dollar fifty. The box seats cost ten dollars. As with many 19th-century theatres, the Brooklyn Theatre's stage was a presentation platform, a prop factory and a warehouse. At the back of the stage was the painter's bridge, a walkway which ran the width of the stage and which could be raised or lowered as required for painting backdrops, or drops. These and borders, scenic elements painted on canvas and mounted on wooden frames, were installed in

1474-418: A flimsy wooden frame, the curtain blocked the backstage from view. Kate Claxton , playing Louise the blind orphan girl, along with actors J. B. Studley and H. S. Murdoch, had taken their places on stage and were waiting for the curtain to rise. Claxton was lying on a pallet of straw, looking up. Actors Mary Ann Farren and Claude Burroughs were waiting in the wings. Around 11:20 p.m., while preparations for

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1608-449: A foot (30 cm) away from the gas lamps within. Personnel were forbidden to ignite gaslights with matches or smoke anywhere on the stage. On Tuesday evening, December 5, 1876, about a thousand patrons were in attendance. Samuel Hastings, who collected tickets at the gallery entrance, estimated that there were about 400 people in the family circle. One of the theatre owners, Col. Abner Keeny, said that about 360 people purchased tickets for

1742-548: A half hour after J. W. Thorpe had spied a flame no larger than his hand, the Johnson Street end of the building collapsed and an intense rush of air was drawn in, feeding the flames. Anyone who could speak of events transpiring within the building had already left. Thomas Nevins, Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Fire Department , arrived at the theatre around 11:26 p.m.; he decided immediately that

1876-458: A hill near the west end of present-day Atlantic Avenue , was reported to have emotionally exclaimed: "What brave men I must this day lose!". The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, leaving the British in control of New York Harbor . While Washington's defeat on the battlefield cast early doubts on his ability as

2010-508: A land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km ) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km ), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area. Brooklyn was founded by the Dutch in the 17th   century and grew into a busy port city on New York Harbor by the 19th   century. On January   1, 1898, after a long political campaign and public-relations battle during

2144-692: A longstanding cultural lineage include Canarsie , Sea Gate , and Crown Heights , home to the Chabad world headquarters. Neighborhoods with largely defunct yet historically notable Jewish populations include central Flatbush, East Flatbush, Brownsville, East New York, Bensonhurst and Sheepshead Bay (particularly its Madison subsection). Many hospitals in Brooklyn were started by Jewish charities, including Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park and Brookdale Hospital in East Flatbush. According to

2278-568: A major role in supplying troops and materiel for the American Civil War . The best-known regiment to be sent off to war from the city was the 14th Brooklyn "Red Legged Devils" . They fought from 1861 to 1864, wore red the entire war, and were the only regiment named after a city. President Abraham Lincoln called them into service, making them part of a handful of three-year enlisted soldiers in April 1861. Unlike other regiments during

2412-536: A number of their productions to the Brooklyn house. Their specialty was the adaptation of French plays to the American stage. The Two Orphans was a melodrama about two young homeless orphans separated by abduction; it featured Miss Kate Claxton and was presented on the night of the fire. It had been a particularly successful play, running for 180 performances in 1874 at the Union Square Theatre. It

2546-679: A seat in the family circle close to the stairway; he was in the company of his friend Joseph Kreamer. He remembered, "we could hardly run down the stairs; we were crowded down." Though at first he saw no smoke, by the time he had been carried down to the last flight, it had grown thicker. There he tripped and people fell on top of him. By then the last flight of stairs was dark and full of smoke. Straub struggled up and stumbled forward. He estimated that about twenty-five people had gotten out ahead of him. Wondrously, though he had been pushed down three flights of stairs and thought that hundreds had fallen on top of him, only about ten or twelve people came out onto

2680-414: A second floor corridor. Patrons then made a right turn into this corridor and follow the passageway northward along the west wall to the family circle box office. The passage then turned left, westward again, descended a third flight of stairs down to a short, street-level hallway that led onto Washington Street (see Floor Plan 2). Access to the dress circle was more straightforward. Patrons entered and left

2814-540: A separate mayor, elected a Borough President . In 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was completed, transportation to Manhattan was no longer by water only, and the City of Brooklyn's ties to the City of New York were strengthened. The question became whether Brooklyn was prepared to engage in the still-grander process of consolidation then developing throughout the region, whether to join with the county of Richmond and

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2948-410: A small street running along the east side of the building that bisected the block from Johnson to Myrtle Avenue. Each set was six feet (1.8 m) across. The southern door closest to Myrtle Avenue opened into the eastern end of the lobby, underneath the flight of stairs leading from the lobby to the dress circle. The middle set opened onto a hallway adjoining the parquet, and the northern set opened near

3082-509: A variation of the place name " Canarsie ". Bands were associated with place names, but the colonists thought their names represented different tribes. The Breuckelen settlement was named after Breukelen in the Netherlands ; it was part of New Netherland . The Dutch West India Company lost little time in chartering the six original parishes (listed here by their later English town names): The colony's capital of New Amsterdam , across

3216-592: A variety of Jewish businesses. Adjacent to Borough Park, the Kensington area housed a significant population of Conservative Jews (under the aegis of such nationally prominent midcentury rabbis as Jacob Bosniak and Abraham Heller) when it was still considered to be a subsection of Flatbush; many of their defunct facilities have been repurposed to serve extensions of the Borough Park Hasidic community. Other notable religious Jewish neighborhoods with

3350-441: A water meter magnate and close friend of President Grover Cleveland ), with nearby Crown Heights gradually fulfilling an analogous role for the city's Jewish population as development continued through the early 20th century. Northeast of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick (by now a working class, predominantly German district) established a considerable brewery industry; the so-called "Brewer's Row" encompassed 14 breweries operating in

3484-510: Is derived from the original Dutch town of Breukelen . The oldest mention of the settlement in the Netherlands is in a charter of 953 by Holy Roman Emperor Otto I as Broecklede . This form is made up of the words broeck , meaning bog or marshland , and lede , meaning small (dug) water stream, specifically in peat areas. Breuckelen on the American continent was established in 1646, and the name first appeared in print in 1663. Over

3618-451: Is right behind me, you ought to have the presence of mind to go out quietly." Kate Claxton echoed J. B. Studley's line, and stage manager J. W. Thorpe appeared, also urging an orderly exit. But the audience was now thoroughly panicked and ignored those on the stage. Claxton later recalled, "We were now almost surrounded by flames; it was madness to delay longer. I took Mr. Murdoch by the arm and said 'Come, let us go.' He pulled away from me in

3752-507: Is water (27%); the borough is the second-largest by land area among the New York City's boroughs. However, Kings County, coterminous with Brooklyn, is New York State's fourth-smallest county by land area and third-smallest by total area. Brooklyn lies at the southwestern end of Long Island, and the borough's western border constitutes the island's western tip. Brooklyn's water borders are extensive and varied, including Jamaica Bay ;

3886-412: The 2020 United States census , the population stood at 2,736,074, making it the most populous of the five boroughs of New York City, the most populous county in the state. Brooklyn, at 37,339.9 inhabitants per square mile (14,417.0/km ), is the second most densely populated county in the U.S. after Manhattan (New York County), as of 2022. Had Brooklyn remained an independent city, it would now be

4020-617: The Atlantic Ocean ; The Narrows , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Staten Island in New York City and crossed by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ; Upper New York Bay , separating Brooklyn from Jersey City and Bayonne in the U.S. state of New Jersey ; and the East River , separating Brooklyn from the borough of Manhattan in New York City and traversed by the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel ,

4154-617: The Brighton Beach Line in 1878 heralded the end of this isolation. Sports in Brooklyn became a business. The Brooklyn Bridegrooms played professional baseball at Washington Park in the convenient suburb of Park Slope and elsewhere. Early in the next century, under their new name of Brooklyn Dodgers, they brought baseball to Ebbets Field , beyond Prospect Park. Racetracks, amusement parks , and beach resorts opened in Brighton Beach , Coney Island , and elsewhere in

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4288-682: The Brooklyn Bridge , the Manhattan Bridge , the Williamsburg Bridge , and numerous routes of the New York City Subway . To the east of Brooklyn lies the borough of Queens, which contains John F. Kennedy International Airport in that borough's Jamaica neighborhood, approximately two miles from the border of Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood. Under the Köppen climate classification , Brooklyn experiences

4422-405: The Brooklyn Fire Department (BFD) also gave way to the new Metropolitan Fire District. Throughout this period the peripheral towns of Kings County, far from Manhattan and even from urban Brooklyn, maintained their rustic independence. The only municipal change seen was the secession of the eastern section of the Town of Flatbush as the Town of New Lots in 1852. The building of rail links such as

4556-549: The Middle Colonies of nascent British America . On November 1, 1683, Kings County was partitioned from the West Riding of York Shire, containing the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island, as one of the "original twelve counties" . This tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of a Brooklyn identity. Lacking

4690-646: The New Netherland colony in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo-Dutch War . New Netherland was taken in a naval action, and the English renamed the new capture for their naval commander, James, Duke of York , brother of the then monarch King Charles II and future king himself as King James II . Brooklyn became a part of the West Riding of York Shire in the Province of New York , one of

4824-451: The USDA plant hardiness zone 7b . Brooklyn's neighborhoods are dynamic in ethnic composition. For example, the early to mid-20th century, Brownsville had a majority of Jewish residents; since the 1970s it has been majority African American. Midwood during the early 20th century was filled with ethnic Irish , then filled with Jewish residents for nearly 50 years, and is slowly becoming

4958-510: The automobile and commuter rail -driven vogue for more remote prewar suburban communities, such as Garden City, New York and Montclair, New Jersey . The rapidly growing population needed more water, so the City built centralized waterworks, including the Ridgewood Reservoir . The municipal Police Department, however, was abolished in 1854 in favor of a Metropolitan force covering also New York and Westchester Counties. In 1865

5092-406: The fourth most populous American city after the rest of New York City, Los Angeles , and Chicago . Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, Brooklyn shares a border with the borough of Queens . It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River , and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge . With

5226-522: The patroon and tenant farmer system established along the Hudson River Valley , this agricultural county unusually came to have one of the highest percentages of slaves among the population in the "Original Thirteen Colonies" along the Atlantic Ocean eastern coast of North America . On August 27, 1776, the Battle of Long Island (also known as the 'Battle of Brooklyn') was fought,

5360-651: The " Little Fuzhou ( 小福州 )" of Brooklyn. Many Chinese restaurants can be found throughout Sunset Park, and the area hosts a popular Chinese New Year celebration. Since the 2000s going forward, the growing concentration of the Cantonese speaking population in Brooklyn have dramatically shifted to Bensonhurst/Gravesend and Homecrest creating newer Chinatowns of Brooklyn and these newer Brooklyn Chinatowns are known as "Brooklyn's Little Hong Kong/Guangdong" due to their Chinese populations being overwhelmingly Cantonese populated. Thomas R. Jackson Jackson emigrated as

5494-608: The 'h' from its name. By 1841, with the appearance of The Brooklyn Eagle, and Kings County Democrat published by Alfred G. Stevens, the growing city across the East River from Manhattan was producing its own prominent newspaper. It later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19, 1842, and the paper was renamed The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Kings County Democrat on June 1, 1846. On May 14, 1849,

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5628-842: The 1883 poem, " The New Colossus " by Emma Lazarus , which appears on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty . The poem calls New York Harbor "the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame". As a twin city to New York, it played a role in national affairs that was later overshadowed by decades of subordination by its old partner and rival. During this period, the affluent, contiguous districts of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill (then characterized collectively as The Hill) were home to such notable figures as Astral Oil Works founder Charles Pratt and his children, including local civic leader Charles Millard Pratt ; Theosophical Society co-founder William Quan Judge ; and Pfizer co-founders Charles Pfizer and Charles F. Erhart . Brooklyn Heights remained one of

5762-422: The 1890s and despite opposition from Brooklyn residents, Brooklyn was consolidated in and annexed (along with other areas) to form the current five-borough structure of New York City in accordance to the new municipal charter of " Greater New York ". The borough continues to maintain some distinct culture . Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves . With Jews forming around a quarter of its population,

5896-536: The 19th century and two-thirds of the 20th century. The first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan , which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1816. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a commuter town for Wall Street . Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York . Town and Village were combined to form

6030-630: The 19th century and was consolidated in 1898 with New York City (then confined to Manhattan and the Bronx ), the remaining rural areas of Kings County, and the largely rural areas of Queens and Staten Island , to form the modern City of New York. The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle Long Island's western edge, which was then largely inhabited by the Lenape , an Algonquian-speaking American Indian tribe often referred to in European documents by

6164-652: The 19th century. The waterfront from Gowanus to Greenpoint was developed with piers and factories. Industrial access to the waterfront was improved by the Gowanus Canal and the canalized Newtown Creek . USS  Monitor was the most famous product of the large and growing shipbuilding industry of Williamsburg. After the Civil War , trolley lines and other transport brought urban sprawl beyond Prospect Park (completed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1873 and widely heralded as an improvement upon

6298-593: The American Civil War, the 14th wore a uniform inspired by the French Chasseurs , a light infantry used for quick assaults. As a seaport and a manufacturing center, Brooklyn was well prepared to contribute to the Union's strengths in shipping and manufacturing. The two combined in shipbuilding; the ironclad Monitor was built in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is referred to as the twin city of New York in

6432-570: The American Jewish Population Project in 2020, Brooklyn was home to over 480,000 Jews. In 2023, the UJA-Federation of New York estimated that Brooklyn is home to 462,000 Jews, a large decrease compared to the 561,000 estimated in 2011. The predominantly Jewish, Crown Heights (and later East Flatbush)-based Madison Democratic Club served as the borough's primary "clubhouse" political venue for decades until

6566-524: The East River, obtained its charter in 1653. The neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North America's first tide mill . It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today. But the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furman 's 1824 compilation. Present-day Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the English captured

6700-459: The Heights, the less exclusive South Brooklyn was home to longtime civic leader James S. T. Stranahan , who became known (often derisively) as the " Baron Haussmann of Brooklyn" for championing Prospect Park and other public works. Economic growth continued, propelled by immigration and industrialization , and Brooklyn established itself as the third-most populous American city for much of

6834-819: The New York metropolitan area's most august patrician redoubts into the early 20th century under the aegis of such figures as abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher , Congregationalist theologians Lyman Abbott and Newell Dwight Hillis (who followed Beecher as the second and third pastors of Plymouth Church , respectively), financier John Jay Pierrepont (a grandson of founding Heights resident Hezekiah Pierrepont ), banker/art collector David Leavitt , educator/politician Seth Low , merchant/banker Horace Brigham Claflin , attorney William Cary Sanger (who served for two years as United States Assistant Secretary of War under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt ) and publisher Alfred Smith Barnes . Contiguous to

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6968-490: The Town of Flatlands in 1896. Brooklyn had reached its natural municipal boundaries at the ends of Kings County. Low's time in office from 1882 to 1885 was marked by a number of reforms: Brooklyn elected a mayor from 1834 until 1898, after which it was consolidated into the City of Greater New York , whose own second mayor (1902–1903), Seth Low, had been Mayor of Brooklyn from 1882 to 1885. Since 1898, Brooklyn has, in place of

7102-532: The Washington Street entrance, Kate Claxton was taken there. Dressed only in thin theatrical garb, she huddled in the station house. The enormous disaster would occur to her only in small, incongruous pieces. Sitting quietly in Captain Smith's office, she would suddenly mourn for some lost article of clothing, her seal skin sacque or jewelry. Later on, the thought that she had lost her purse and

7236-559: The area, and afterward the British generally enjoyed a dominant Loyalist sentiment from the residents in Kings County who did not evacuate, though the region was also the center of the fledgling—and largely successful— Patriot intelligence network , headed by Washington himself. The British set up a system of prison ships off the coast of Brooklyn in Wallabout Bay . More American patriots died there than in combat on all

7370-533: The area. It is called "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and originally it was a small Chinese enclave with Cantonese speakers being the main Chinese population during the late 1980s and 1990s, but since the 2000s, the Chinese population in the area dramatically shifted to majority Fuzhounese Americans , which contributed immensely to expanding this Chinatown, and bestowing the nicknames " Fuzhou Town ( 福州埠 ), Brooklyn" or

7504-1017: The ascendancy of Meade Esposito 's rival, Canarsie-based Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in the 1960s and 1970s, playing an integral role in the rise of such figures as Speaker of the New York State Assembly Irwin Steingut ; his son, fellow Speaker Stanley Steingut ; New York City Mayor Abraham Beame ; real estate developer Fred Trump ; Democratic district leader Beadie Markowitz; and political fixer Abraham "Bunny" Lindenbaum. Many non-Orthodox Jews (ranging from observant members of various denominations to atheists of Jewish cultural heritage) are concentrated in Ditmas Park and Park Slope , with smaller observant and culturally Jewish populations in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island. Over 200,000 Chinese Americans live throughout

7638-442: The audience to be seated and "to be calm, as calmness was self possession, and self possession security". Thomas Rocheford, head usher, went to the auditorium when he heard someone yell 'Fire!' He later testified: "Mr. Studley and Mr. Murdoch sung out to the people to keep their seats. I also stopped quite a number going out who were making a rush. Finally a good many of them cooled down and took their seats." From his vantage point in

7772-416: The basement and to the box office. Through that she and fellow actress Maude Harrison bypassed much of the lobby crush. Murdoch and Claude Burroughs thought there was enough time to get their street clothes from their dressing rooms − it was December and their stage costumes were flimsy. They became trapped and did not escape. Some actors and stage hands left by the utility doors exiting onto Johnson Street, but

7906-690: The battlefield engagements of the American Revolutionary War combined. One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City , which was celebrated by New Yorkers into the 20th century. The first half of the 19th century saw the beginning of the development of urban areas on the economically strategic East River shore of Kings County, facing the adolescent City of New York confined to Manhattan Island. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay (border between Fort Greene and Williamsburg) during

8040-464: The borough has been described as "the most Jewish spot on Earth". Brooklyn's official motto, displayed on the borough seal and flag , is Eendraght Maeckt Maght , which translates from early modern Dutch as ' Unity makes strength '. Educational institutions in Brooklyn include the City University of New York 's Brooklyn College , Medgar Evers College , and College of Technology . In

8174-476: The building fairly quickly, but Rocheford's action came at a cost. The open doors furnished airflow for the fire on the stage, which immediately grew in intensity. Despite the initial scenes of despair and panic that had issued from that quadrant, patrons in the lower parquet and parquet circle were able to escape in under three minutes, having access to Flood's Alley and Washington Street exits and having no flights of stairs to negotiate. The least crowded section of

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8308-416: The building was lost and his job was one of confinement. Dieter Hotel, on the corner of Washington and Johnson streets, was lower than the theatre, its broad flat roof was an inviting target for flaming debris. The First Police Precinct station house, south of the theatre, was an old brick building with dry wooden support beams. Ramshackle wooden frame buildings stretched down the block on Flood's Alley opposite

8442-471: The burning theatre. At that point, the prevailing wind was from the west, carrying smoke and cinders east, dropping firebrands onto these old structures. The Post Office, south of the police station house, was filled with paper mail. Nevins had called in the second and third alarms while on the way to the fire; when the additional equipment arrived, he deployed the engines around the block to keep adjoining buildings free of sparks and burning debris. By midnight,

8576-410: The canvas ceiling was raised, and through the opening thus made I saw the flames, and saw men trying to rake the fire off the ceiling [of the box set] with long poles." With smoldering debris falling onto the stage, the actors fell out of character. Many in the audience, already restive, rose from their seats and commenced to crowd the aisles. Kate Claxton, H. S. Murdoch, and J. B. Studley at first urged

8710-411: The ceiling and the family circle located in the highest reaches of the theatre, there was an urgency for everyone to leave. To complicate matters, gas pressure in the building was beginning to falter, dimming the stairway lamps. When fire entered the dry and superheated roof of the theatre, it spread with extreme rapidity. In the family circle, Charles Vine thought that less than four minutes passed from

8844-524: The commander, the tactical withdrawal of all his troops and supplies across the East River in a single night is now seen by historians as one of his most brilliant triumphs. The British controlled the surrounding region for the duration of the war, as New York City was soon occupied and became their military and political base of operations in North America for the remainder of the conflict. The Patriot residents largely fled or were cleared from

8978-475: The corner of Johnson Street. Patrons in the first rush down the stairs found the door locked; no usher was in sight. In the brief time it took them to discover that the door was locked and return to the dress circle, the stage had become engulfed and they had no recourse but to attempt to work their way down the main dress circle stairs to the lobby, adding their numbers to the crush on those stairs. Fire Marshal Keady would later write that he never found evidence that

9112-417: The day shift and another 12 on the night shift. Every time a rash of burglaries broke out, officials blamed burglars from New York City. Finally, in 1855, a modern police force was created, employing 150 men. Voters complained of inadequate protection and excessive costs. In 1857, the state legislature merged the Brooklyn force with that of New York City. Fervent in the Union cause, the city of Brooklyn played

9246-455: The din was maddening. He thought everyone was going crazy. Above all, dense smoke was beginning to fill the gallery, reducing visibility and making breathing difficult. He saw that movement down the stairway had stalled, with people piling over one another. He considered jumping from one of the windows facing Flood's Alley, but it was a sixty-foot (18 m) drop. He walked to the front of the gallery and decided to make his jump there. He fell to

9380-511: The doorway and stumbled under the relentless press from people behind them. Their feet got caught in balustrades; they tripped and fell. As they emerged from the dress circle stairs into the lobby, they encountered a stream of other patrons on their right rushing from the parquet and wheeling toward the Washington Street exit. After Thomas Rocheford had opened the Flood's Alley exit, they collided with an opposing stream working toward that door, which

9514-419: The dress circle and about 250 people in the parquet and parquet circle. Edward B. Dickinson, a patron in the middle of the parquet about five rows from the stage, thought the auditorium floor was not more than half full. Charles Vine, high in the family circle, thought it was "one of the biggest galleries" he had seen in a long time. The play proceeded without incident until 11 p.m., the intermission between

9648-491: The dress circle below, severely cutting himself in the groin on the iron-backed chairs, but he retained consciousness and was able to run to the dress circle door. There, he encountered another scene of bedlam, this one on the stairway from the dress circle, where people were struggling over those who had fallen on the stairs. Fortunately, Vine was now nearer the Washington Street entrance, where Cain and his fellow police officers were slowly reinstating some kind of rough order. He

9782-484: The dress circle via a flight of 10-foot-wide (3.0 m) stairs that descended south to a landing, then turned right onto a second flight that opened into the lobby. Patrons in the dress circle also had a second emergency exit along the alley side of the building, going down a flight of stairs to the middle exit onto Flood's Alley. The exit was generally locked to thwart gate crashers so the stairs were little used and not well known. Eight private boxes, four on each side of

9916-535: The earlier Central Park ) into the center of the county, as evinced by gradual settlement in the comparatively rustic villages of Windsor Terrace and Kensington in the Town of Flatbush. By century's end, Dean Alvord 's Prospect Park South development (adjacent to the village of Flatbush) would serve as the template for contemporaneous " Victorian Flatbush " micro-neighborhoods and the post-consolidation emergence of outlying districts, such as Midwood and Marine Park . Along with Oak Park, Illinois , it also presaged

10050-425: The east end of the vestibule, opposite of the Washington Street entrances, one of the three special exit doors designed by architect Jackson. Since the doors were rarely used, he found the locking mechanism corroded; he was initially unable to open the doors. He found a small piece of metal in his pocket and with this was able to release the doors. This action enabled the people on the floor of the auditorium to evacuate

10184-426: The exit had been opened. Circumstances were only worse in the family circle. With around four hundred patrons seated there, it was served by a single, long stairway to street level. In the stairs leading off the gallery platform, there were two right-angled turns and two long passages. At six feet eight inches (2.03 m), it was wider than most gallery passages of that era, but with smoke accumulating under

10318-406: The family circle, Charles Vine thought that Claxton was "the nerviest woman I ever saw  ... [She] came out with J. B. Studley, and said the fire would be out in a few moments. She was white as a sheet, but she stood up full of nerve." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported Claxton saying, "There is no danger; the flames are a part of the play." The assertion was disingenuous – fire had no part in

10452-466: The family circle, the highest tier in the theatre offering the cheapest seats. This gallery sustained extreme temperatures and dense, suffocating smoke early in the conflagration. Only one stairway served it which became jammed with people and cut off escape for more than half the gallery's occupants. The Brooklyn Theatre opened on October 2, 1871 and stood near the southeast corner of Washington and Johnson streets one block north of Brooklyn's City Hall. It

10586-447: The final act were under way, stage manager J. W. Thorpe saw a small flame on the left side of the stage. The fire issued from the lower part of a drop hanging below the rigging loft near the center stage border-light. The canvas was partially detached from the frame and, Thorpe thought, possibly slipped past the wire mesh border lamp guard and ignited. He estimated its size to be no larger than his hand. Though water buckets were once kept on

10720-490: The fire had peaked, drawing around 5,000 spectators. It burned uncontrolled until around 1:00 am, and, in the wee hours, the walls along Flood's Alley collapsed, filling the alley with debris. By 3:00 am it began burning out. Nevins considered the blaze now partially under control. Many survivors found a temporary haven in the First Precinct station house. After a Brooklyn Eagle reporter found her dazed near

10854-400: The fire on the stage soon became widespread, cutting those exits off. All the remaining exits were in the front of the house, the main entrance exiting onto Washington street or the special exit doors leading into Flood's Alley. While the actors were attempting to quell the panic, the head usher, Thomas Rocheford, went to the rear of the auditorium to open the Flood's Alley special exit door on

10988-402: The fire under control. After speaking a few lines, Kate Claxton was alerted by Lillian Cleves, who was standing behind the box set. She whispered sotto voce through the canvas that there was fire on stage and urged them to leave. Claxton recalled peering up through the flimsy canvas and seeing "sparks falling and little tongues of the fire licking the edges of the drops and borders that hung in

11122-467: The first decades of the 21st   century, Brooklyn has experienced a renaissance as a destination for hipsters , with concomitant gentrification , dramatic house-price increases, and a decrease in housing affordability. Some new developments are required to include affordable housing units. Since the 2010s, parts of Brooklyn have evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship, high-technology startup firms , postmodern art , and design. The name Brooklyn

11256-575: The first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared , and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the modern sites of Green-Wood Cemetery , Prospect Park , and Grand Army Plaza . Washington , viewing particularly fierce fighting at the Gowanus Creek and Old Stone House from atop

11390-412: The first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. In a parallel development, the Town of Bushwick, farther up the river, saw the incorporation of the Village of Williamsburgh in 1827, which separated as the Town of Williamsburgh in 1840 and formed the short-lived City of Williamsburgh in 1851. Industrial deconcentration in the mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to

11524-424: The flame, which they attempted by beating the fire with long stage poles. Another carpenter who was backstage tried to fix the drop in one of the grooves but "could barely reach it with his hand and he drew it hastily up. The rapid motion through the air of the half ignited and highly flammable canvas, caused it to burst into a flame, which rapidly spread". The curtains rose while backstage personnel hastened to bring

11658-411: The flies." In spite of this, the actors continued with their performance, apparently thinking that any unusual behavior would only induce panic. Mrs. Mary Ann Farren made her entrance and after delivering her first lines, softly whispered, "The fire is steadily gaining." The actors remained in character for only a little while longer, the audience growing increasingly restive. In spite of their efforts,

11792-464: The fourth and fifth act. The drop curtain was down, hiding the stage, and the orchestra was playing. Some attendees in the parquet circle heard what sounded like a brawl behind the curtain, shouting and machinery working, noise carrying above the orchestra's playing. Behind the curtain, actors were taking their positions in a box set of an old boathouse on the bank of the Seine. Made of painted canvas on

11926-515: The gallery, but people had called up there and received no reply, nor were there sounds of movement. The inclination was to hope for the best. True, when Charles Vine dropped himself off the gallery there had still been hundreds of people struggling on the staircase, but Vine had sought medical assistance for his deep cuts, so what he knew was not general knowledge. When the morning papers went to press, none carried news of casualties. Shortly after 3:00 am, Chief Nevins attempted his first sally into

12060-415: The large number of people inquiring after other people, the received wisdom of the wee morning hours was that most, if not all, people had gotten out alive. Among the police and fire fighters, this idea stemmed largely from the last searches of District Engineer Farley: no one had been seen in the parquet or parquet circle. No one had been seen in the dress circle. It was true that no one had physically checked

12194-399: The loss of Brooklyn's separate identity as a city was met with consternation by some residents at the time. Many newspapers of the day called the merger the "Great Mistake of 1898", and the phrase still elicits Brooklyn pride among old-time Brooklynites. Brooklyn is 97 square miles (250 km ) in area, of which 71 square miles (180 km ) is land (73%), and 26 square miles (67 km )

12328-532: The memorial stone erected in Green-Wood Cemetery would reference 278 deaths. Brooklyn Brooklyn is a borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the State of New York . Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County , one of twelve original counties established under British rule in 1683 in the then Province of New York . As of

12462-410: The name that its origin has been debated; some have claimed breuckelen means "broken land". The current name, however, is the one that best reflects its meaning. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years. The settlement began in the 17th century as the small Dutch-founded town of "Breuckelen" on the East River shore of Long Island , grew to be a sizeable city in

12596-470: The name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ; on September 5, 1938, it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle . The establishment of the paper in the 1840s helped develop a separate identity for Brooklynites over the next century. The borough's soon-to-be-famous National League baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers , also assisted with this. Both major institutions were lost in the 1950s:

12730-454: The nation. Brooklyn contains dozens of distinct neighborhoods representing many of the major culturally identified groups found within New York City. Among the most prominent are listed below: Over 600,000 Jews , particularly Orthodox and Hasidic Jews , have become concentrated in such historically Jewish areas as Borough Park , Williamsburg , and Midwood , where there are many yeshivas , synagogues , and kosher restaurants, as well as

12864-401: The news confined to his senior District Engineers, not wishing to incur a stampede into the fragile theatre of people seeking loved ones. The next foray into the building did not occur until the daylight hours. Chief Nevins had his District Engineers organize recovery parties. Except for a short segment of the vestibule, the building had mainly collapsed into the cellar and burned until the wood

12998-401: The next three days. It was slow work; the conditions of the bodies were such that they would fall apart with only the slightest movement, and many had been mangled and dismembered. An exact body count was never obtained, given the state of forensic science in that era. With many bodies partially dismembered and scattered about by the gallery's collapse, and with faces burned beyond recognition, it

13132-433: The northern part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems. However, the East River shore was growing too fast for the three-year-old infant City of Williamsburg; it, along with its Town of Bushwick hinterland, was subsumed within a greater City of Brooklyn in 1855, subsequently dropping

13266-433: The other police officers eventually cleared the dress circle stairs to work their way up to the doors, where there was the connecting doorway to the family gallery stairway. They tried going up to the family gallery but were stopped by thick smoke. They heard no traffic on the stairway, heard no human sounds. They called up but received no response. Farley ordered one last inspection of the dress circle, but saw no activity. Nor

13400-498: The paper closed in 1955 after unsuccessful attempts at a sale following a reporters' strike, and the baseball team decamped for Los Angeles in a realignment of Major League Baseball in 1957. Agitation against Southern slavery was stronger in Brooklyn than in New York, and under Republican leadership, the city was fervent in the Union cause in the Civil War . After the war the Henry Ward Beecher Monument

13534-511: The past two millennia, the name of the ancient town in Holland has been Bracola , Broccke , Brocckede , Broiclede , Brocklandia , Broekclen , Broikelen , Breuckelen, and finally Breukelen . The New Amsterdam settlement of Breuckelen also went through many spelling variations, including Breucklyn , Breuckland , Brucklyn , Broucklyn , Brookland , Brockland , Brocklin , and Brookline/Brook-line . There have been so many variations of

13668-465: The public. The shorter 27-by-40-foot (8.2 m × 12.2 m) wing on Washington Street housed the main entrance to the lower floors and a separate staircase to the third floor theatre gallery. They were for public use, and Jackson considered these main entry ways to be large enough to discharge a full house of 1,450 people in less than five minutes. There were three sets of doors which Jackson designated as special exits. They led onto Flood's Alley,

13802-418: The scenery for Julius Caesar was stacked on the stage, awaiting pickup. This had bearing on the fire's outset when stage manager Thorpe considered getting the hose but was hampered by scenery. The proscenium arch housed a 35-by-50-foot (11 m × 15 m) drop curtain. The arch itself was not integral to the theatre but was constructed with a lightweight, plastered curtain wall made of wood. The drama

13936-638: The southern part of the county. Toward the end of the 19th century, the City of Brooklyn experienced its final, explosive growth spurt. Park Slope was rapidly urbanized, with its eastern summit soon emerging as the city's third "Gold Coast" district alongside Brooklyn Heights and The Hill; notable residents of the era included American Chicle Company co-founder Thomas Adams Jr. and New York Central Railroad executive Clinton L. Rossiter. East of The Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant coalesced as an upper middle class enclave for lawyers, shopkeepers, and merchants of German and Irish descent (notably exemplified by John C. Kelley,

14070-537: The southern parts of Brooklyn, primarily concentrated in Sunset Park , Bensonhurst , Gravesend , and Homecrest . Brooklyn is the borough that is home to the highest number of Chinatowns in New York City . The largest concentration is in Sunset Park along 8th Avenue, which has become known for its Chinese culture since the opening of the now-defunct Winley Supermarket in 1986 spurred widespread settlement in

14204-407: The stage and each accommodating six people, rounded out the seating, the box seats furnishing the most elegant and expensive accommodations in the house. At the time the theatre opened in 1871, seating in the family circle cost fifty cents and the dress circle cost a dollar. In the lower auditorium, parquet seating, inconveniently close to the stage, cost seventy five cents while the parquet circle cost

14338-473: The stage and in the rigging loft and though a two and a half inch (6.4 cm) water pipe still serviced a fire hose backstage, none of these facilities were readily available. Thorpe considered the fire hose, but there was much scenery in the way. Deciding that the fire would be well under way by the time the hose was in place, he opted to extinguish the flame by immediately available means. He directed carpenters Hamilton Weaver and William Van Sicken to extinguish

14472-518: The stage and orchestra pit. The middle set served a stairway ascending to the second floor dress circle. These alley doors were normally locked to discourage gate-crashing. The structure had no fire escapes in the modern sense: those that connect higher storey windows to the street. Sources from the period often called these alley doors "fire escapes," but designs of the era were untested and tended to be impractical. The Brooklyn Theatre had three levels of seating. Parquet and parquet circle seating occupied

14606-423: The stage and up against the theatre ceiling, the family circle offered the cheapest accommodations and had the most roundabout access to the street. The passageway started from the gallery, passed through a curtain partition, then descended southward down a short flight of stairs to a platform set against the south wall. It turned right (west) and descended another flight of stairs anchored to the south wall, ending at

14740-420: The stage hands could not snuff the fire out; instead they had inadvertently knocked burning material free, spreading fire to the rigging loft. Bits of flaming debris were beginning to fall, descending onto the box set and other properties spread around backstage. Dickinson, sitting in the center parquet, saw a thin wreath of smoke curling along the ceiling of the boxed-in scene. "Immediately afterward, one corner of

14874-443: The stairs when he arrived. He was joined by Van Sicken, who had been driven from the stage, and Mike Sweeny, the building janitor, and other first precinct officers. The men began untangling the people, struggling to reinstate forward motion and using billy clubs on those who attempted to rush or push. Some people in the dress circle, familiar with the theatre, tried to avail themselves of the other exit leading into Flood's Alley, near

15008-460: The story – and it would soon prove short-lived. "As she spoke," the Eagle continued, "a burning piece of wood fell at her feet, and she uttered an involuntary exclamation of alarm. This broke the spell which had heretofore held the audience." Panic erupted. Thought turned to quelling it. J. B. Studley in particular reasoned: "If I have the presence of mind to stand here between you and the fire, which

15142-466: The street after him. He waited around the Washington Street entrance for three-quarters of an hour, but he never saw his friend Kreamer emerge from the stairway, nor did he ever see him again. Charles Vine, who had been beguiled with Kate Claxton's nerve, was far away from those stairs. Claxton's assurances had induced him to wait in his seat for a few minutes, but the crowd growing on the stairs made him uneasy. The sight of men trampling women appalled him;

15276-524: The theatre for a short time, but without success. Albert Marshman Palmer and Sheridan Shook were the manager and proprietor of New York's Union Square Theatre, and they assumed a new lease on the Brooklyn Theatre later in 1875, managing it until the catastrophe took place. The Brooklyn Theatre stood a block from Fulton Street, the main thoroughfare to the Manhattan ferries and readily accessible to both New York and Brooklyn residents. Its seating capacity

15410-407: The theatre had the best evacuation routes. Those in the second floor dress circle had to contend with stairs. The main flight led to the lobby and eventually the Washington Street exit; a second flight led to the Flood's Alley side door close to Johnson Street. Most favored the main flight because it was the way in which they had first entered the circle and were already familiar with it. The stairway

15544-403: The theatre's ground floor and contained 600 seats. The dress circle occupied a second floor balcony which seated 550. A third floor gallery, the family circle, extended to the south wall of the structure and seated 450. The family circle had its own entrance and ticket booth and customers for this seating did not usually commingle with patrons purchasing seating for the lower floors. Furthest from

15678-401: The time he saw fire on the stage to the arrival of smoke. To Officer G. A. Wessman, working to clear the crush in the dress circle, the smoke appeared as "a kind of dark blue [with] a most peculiar smell; no human being could live in it for two minutes." As it filled the upper reaches of the theatre, Wessman "heard cries and a thumping noise, as of persons falling or jumping." Charles Straub had

15812-481: The vestibule of the theatre; no one had been in there since District Chief Farley's departure more than three hours prior. His first attempts failed, but eventually he worked his way into the vestibule. Outside the doors leading into the lobby, he found the body of a woman, legs partially burned away, face and arms disfigured. She was sitting upright with her back against the south wall. Nevins decided that at that point there were likely many more bodies to be found. He kept

15946-560: The western portion of Queens County , and the county of New York , which by then already included the Bronx , to form the five boroughs of a united City of New York. Andrew Haswell Green and other progressives said yes, and eventually, they prevailed against the Daily Eagle and other conservative forces. In 1894, residents of Brooklyn and the other counties voted by a slight majority to merge, effective in 1898. Kings County retained its status as one of New York State's counties, but

16080-421: The world, Brooklyn has evolved a globally cosmopolitan ambiance of its own, demonstrating a robust and growing demographic and cultural diversity with respect to metrics including nationality, religion, race, and domiciliary partnership . In 2010, 51.6% of the population was counted as members of religious congregations. In 2014, there were 914 religious organizations in Brooklyn, the 10th most of all counties in

16214-439: Was able to gain the lobby and helped clear the crush around the stairs. He left the theatre, carrying a woman who had been trampled underneath and "who seemed as dead as a door nail". Fire Marshal Keady felt that Vine had been the last person to leave the family circle alive. When he had jumped, there were still many people frantically struggling to leave. Inside the lobby, Sweeny, District Engineer Farley and his firemen, Cain, and

16348-406: Was about 1,600. Both Conway and Shook & Palmer sought upscale productions with well-known actors and actresses. The Brooklyn Theatre became a well-respected house in Brooklyn's nascent theatre district, which included the smaller and older Park, Olympic, and Globe theatres. Shook and Palmer were already enjoying success with their Union Square Theatre Company in New York and went on to transplant

16482-440: Was built downtown to honor a famous local abolitionist . A great victory arch was built at what was then the south end of town to celebrate the armed forces; this place is now called Grand Army Plaza . The number of people living in Brooklyn grew rapidly early in the 19th century. There were 4,402 by 1810, 7,175 in 1820 and 15,396 by 1830. The city's population was 25,000 in 1834, but the police department comprised only 12 men on

16616-682: Was considered one of the safest, most fireproof buildings, until it burned in December 1876. His Academy of Music in Albany had burned in 1868, whereupon he was commissioned to design its replacement, the Trimble Opera House. In 1888 plans and specifications for the buildings and the track for the Morris Park Racetrack were prepared by Jackson, personally approved in detail by John Morris, the entrepreneur of what became

16750-444: Was consumed. What first appeared to be a great deal of rubbish in the cellar underneath the vestibule turned out to be largely human remains, a large mass of people which had fallen into twisted and distorted positions and then burned. These were mainly from the gallery and the stairway, which, in the original structure, had been above the vestibule ceiling against the south wall of the building. Removal of these remains occupied much of

16884-455: Was difficult to determine how many people were in a given pile of limbs, heads and trunks. The bodies could only be moved slowly. The capacity of the city morgue was quickly reached so an unused market on Adams Street was pressed into service. By Friday, December 8, Coroner Simms reported that 293 bodies had been taken from the theatre site. The number was by no means definitive. Later, his own Coroner's Report would cite 283 fatalities. Much later,

17018-581: Was ending. At the time of the fire, Palmer indicated that a number of Union Square Theatre productions had been scheduled for the Brooklyn Theatre and that all the scenes and properties for Ferrsol , Rose Michel, Conscience, and Colonel Sellers had been stored on the premises, along with the wardrobe for The Two Orphans and a suite of furniture for Rose Michel . The Brooklyn Theatre was designed by Thomas R. Jackson and constructed in 1871 according to Sara Conway's specifications. Brooklyn Police Fire Marshal Patrick Keady gathered testimony and constructed

17152-401: Was entirely lit with gaslight controlled at a gas table , where an operator could light a lamp with an electric spark and vary its intensity through regulating gas flow. Arrayed on the side of the proscenium arch were gas-lit border lamps, equipped with tin reflectors that cast light backstage and onto the borders. Each border lamp was in a wire cage intended to keep the canvas borders at least

17286-454: Was originally Les Deux Orphelines by Adolphe d'Ennery and Eugène Cormon , and had been adapted to the American stage by N. Hart Jackson. Shook and Palmer brought it to the Brooklyn Theatre in March 1876 after an American tour, including one performance at the Brooklyn Theatre on April 12, 1875, two weeks before Sara Conway's death. The 1876 run at the Brooklyn Theatre was well received but

17420-407: Was over seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and, according to Jackson's estimates, should have emptied the dress circle in under three minutes. But as Brooklyn Police Fire Marshal Patrick Keady noted later in his Special Report, instead of the orderly procession that had originally informed Jackson's evacuation estimates, everyone attempted to sally the stairs at once. Anything but orderly, people jammed in

17554-749: Was owned by The Brooklyn Building Association, a partnership of affluent Brooklyn residents including Abner C. Keeney, William Kingsley, and Judge Alexander McCue . After its destruction, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle called it Brooklyn's "principal theatre." The theatre had been managed by Sara and Frederick B. Conway until the last 20 months of its existence; the Conways were long involved in New York and Brooklyn theatre, having managed Brooklyn's Park Theatre from 1864 to 1871. Sara Conway died in April 1875, about six months after her husband. Their children Minnie, Lillian, and Frederick Jr. then managed

17688-421: Was penniless would haunt her. From time to time people would enter and she would ask them about H. S. Murdoch, the actor who had been on stage with her during her final minutes inside and who had rushed to his dressing room for outerwear. No one had seen him; she would beseech the person to go look for him. Eventually a waterproof cloak was found for her and she was driven to her rooms at Pierrepoint House. Despite

17822-426: Was situated beneath the flight of stairs descending from the dress circle. (See Floor Plan 2). The crush developing from these cross-currents soon brought the pace on the dress circle stairs to a halt, inducing a frenzied panic when people further up pressed downward, unaware of the jam below. Sergeant John Cain, arriving from the First Precinct station house next door, estimated that there were about 150 people jammed on

17956-426: Was there any signs of life in the parquet and orchestra, below, now burning fiercely. To Farley the building seemed evacuated, barring, perhaps, a few stragglers. Not wanting to subject himself or others to any further risk, he ordered his men to quit the building. Within minutes, cracks appeared on the exterior theatre walls facing Johnson street, where, within, the heart of the blaze raged. At 11:45 p.m., less than

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