Serendipitously Sidetracked? A Request for Help.
This afternoon I had planned to go out and get what likely would be the last good photos of Autumn, 2014.
No such luck; dead, cold light sidetracked that plan, so, I decided instead to get back to some of the 100+ years-old Magic Lantern slides give to me by a friend more than a year ago. Restoring and digitizing these can be tedious, frustrating and/or rewarding, and, within the last two hours I came across what may be an historically-important, one-of-a-kind gem of an image.
Having researched, restored, digitized and marketed hundreds of these old glass slide-sandwiched emulsion photographs, I've found them to have been taken between 1880 and 1920, many in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Paris, with others taken in Philadelphia, Indianapolis, St. Louis, San Diego and several other U.S locations.
Among those I have absolutely identified by subject, are several from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, c.1910-1912 . The following image contained no captioning on the glass mount and no date, but, it did have a number hand printed on a sticker placed there by the photographer ABOUT WHOM I HAVE NO INFORMATION AND WHO UNDOUBTED PASSED MANY, MANY YEARS AGO.
Based on that number, I think it's one of the Milwaukee images, and, if it is, it is definitely one-of-a-kind and an important record.
In 1911, a major fire devastated much of Milwaukee and very few images have ever been found to exist. I've researched the image-origin based on the factory/business signs BUT I JUST DON"T KNOW FOR SURE.
Can anyone help me nail it down one way or another?
This is it.
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The WELLS' HATS sign might be the best clue; there's an address but I can't quite nail it down. Other signs and architecture may help.
There's a Windsor hotel sign back yonder, and a couple of others I can't make out. This will take some detective work A Mac. I mean, who do you even contact about something like this, as surely there aren't many left around who could tell ya from sight, exactly where this is. Good luck!
Look for records of a large fire next to 1323.... the building has obviously seen better days, part of it is on the roof of 1323... I don't think that the wells' hats is that building, as there is a different address listed under the sign... Is that a person way out on what looks to be a very precarious perch, to the right and down from the window in the bottom right corner?!?!?
It certainly does look like somebody there, leaning over looking, or something....
Bruce,
On January 27, 1897, there was indeed a major fire in Philadelphia. And Franco-American was part of Campbell Soup Company which is across the Delaware River in New Jersey.
Many thanks for your research and effort.
Whichever city, I still believe it is a one-of-a-kind image.
Just found this
Check the sign next to the Dickson Stoves sign. That pretty much nails it.
I owe you one, Bruce.
Bro,
Indeed, the sign appears to have two different addresses. It seems there may have been a Wells' Hats a 919 Market Street at the time.
The person may be a firefighter.
It's definitely a person sitting on the broken beam at the lower right quadrant. Mac, at the very bottom of the 'Wells' Hats' sign the address is 99 Market St... don't know how that relates to the 1323 at the top of the sign... It looks like the two signs in the very background (behind the Windsor Hotel sign)are also hotel signs...the one just insidetheright edge of the upper-left quadrant may be a billboard, while the other (at the extreme right edge of upper-left quadrant) appears to be built onto the slanted roof of the building, so is probably naming that building/hotel.I can't yet make out the lower letters, but it certainly looks like it's "Hotel something" What's the rez on your digital pic? If you'lle-mail the highest-rez image you have I might be able to make those out...
The digital image is @300 dpi. The other hotel is the Hanover.
I agree it's Philly but I'm not sure it's 1899 rather the fire in January, 1897. The Franco-American sign might be the grocery store referenced below the sign does not appear in the 1899 photo (albeit the photos were taken from different angles). I'll see if I can find when the area was rebuilt.
Much appreciation for the input and research.
RE: The 1897 fire
Egilman,
You may be right. The more "primitive" signage in my photo makes me lean towards the earlier fire. But I will caption the image as "either/or" 1897/1899.
New York, NY Factory Fire In Fourth Floor, Mar 1958
TWENTY-FOUR PERSONS LOSE LIVES IN NEW YORK CITY FIRE.
CITY, STATE PLAN PROBES OF TRAGEDY.
New York (AP) -- The city begins a probe today of the loft building fire on lower Broadway which took a toll of 24 lives -- 18 women and six men. Two state agencies also will enter the investigation.
The flash blaze, touched off by an explosion in a third floor textile plant yesterday, shot smoke and flame into a fourth floor underwear factory, causing panic among 36 workers.
Many were burned beyond recognition, but a medical examiner said most of the victims were asphyxiated before they were englufed by flames.
Fifteen persons were injured. Three of them were treated and sent home last night. The remaining 12 -- including a truck driver who aided the firefighters -- were hospitalized and two of them were described as in critical condition.
Although saying there was no evidence of fire law violations on the premises, Fire Commissioner EDWARD F. CAVANAGH, JR., ordered an investigation for today. In Albany last night, Gov. AVERELL HARRIMAN ordered the State Department of Labor and Division of Safety to investigate the fire in cooperation with city officials.
Panic Played Role.
At the scene of the blaze, where six women leaped from windows to the street CAVANAGH commented:
"It would seem that panic played a most important role in this blaze. Some bodies were piled one on top of the other -- evidence of mass hysteria. At least three jumped from windows where there was no evidence of smoke or flame."
MRS. EDNA MURRAY, 33, employed in the workrooms of the Monarch Underwear Corp. , on Broadway, who was led to safety by firemen, said: "There was heavy smoke. It was hard to see. People were bumping into each other. It looked like a panic."
The blaze broke out when an oven exploded shortly before 4 p.m. on the third floor textile factory in the five-story structure. A bolt of fabric was being treated in the the oven when the blast came. The three employes on the third floor escaped unharmed, as did persons on all other floors but the fourth.
Five alarms brought 200 firemen and dozens of pieces of equipment to the scene. But it was almost 5 p.m. -- two hours -- before the firefighters, repeatedly balked by intense heat and smoke were able to enter the fourth floor by aerial ladder.
Bodies Piled Up.
They saw bodies piled atop one another. Some were heaped near the doorways, others lay under work tables and benches, and some were huddled near windows.
It was the worst fire in the city since Dec. 3, 1956 when 9 persons perished and 247 were injured in an explosion and fire on a Brooklyn pier.
The scene of the fire is just three blocks away from the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire on March 23, 1911, that killed 145 persons.
A loft fire last month in the downtown Manhattan area cost the lives of six firefighters.
The area of yesterday's blaze at Houston street is occupied by ancient loft buildings housing textile plants making such products as hats, shirts and underwear. There are hundreds of loft buildings in Manhattan, with many businesses taking up an entire floor -- often without partitions.
Among the injured was EDWARD WINE, 36, of Manhattan, a truck driver who volunteered to help hold one of the fire nets. A woman leaping from the building missed the net and laded on WINE, father of five children.
Taken To Hospital.
The woman and WINE were taken to a hospital.
Survivors were high in their praise of ABRAHAM J. BECKER, 37, of suburban Hicksville, N. Y., a Monarch Co. foreman, who not only tried to restore order but went back into the flaming fourth floor time and time again to lead others to safety.
But the World War II veteran, married and the father of two children, did not survive his last rescue attempt. He was overcome by smoke and died.
It was not until 8:30 p.m. -- 4 1/2 hours after the fire broke out -- that Fire Commissioner EDWARD J. CAVANAGH was able to say with reasonable certainty that the last victim had been removed from the smoking wreckage at 623 Broadway.
At the height of the 1 1/2 hour blaze, dozens of women textile workers perched like frightened wrens on window sills three, or four stories above the street, awaiting their turns to leap into fire nets.
Six of the women missed the nets and struck the pavement with a sickening impact. One of them landed on a man who was giving firemen a hand with the nets, painfully injuring him as well as herself.
Saw Women Jump.
"I saw women jump out of the window and hit the sidewalk," said a woman onlooker from another building.
Firemen on the nets set up a grim production line mechanism. As fast as one woman hit the nets, she was boosted off to make way for the next. Other women were taken to safety down aerial ladders.
With the blaze finally under control, grime-besmeared firemen risked possible collapse of the wreckage and blackened building in search for victims entombed in the wreckage.
To their surprise, the rescuers found a man and woman bearely alive -- but alive -- in the debris. The woman had taken refuge from the flames in a metal storage box. Tons of water poured in by firemen apparently had kept the box cool enough to allow her to live through the holocaust. The man apparently shielded himself from the flames in some manner while hugging the floor.
Ancient Loft Area.
The area is one of ancient textile lofts, where women work machines for assembling various textile products, such as hats, shirts and underwear. The top three floors of the building were occupied by such firms.
The fire started in the third floor quarters of the S.T.S. Textile Co. The only three persons at work there escaped.
The victims were among 50 women employes of the Monarch Underwear Co. on the building's fourth floor. The rapidly mushrooming flames trapped them before they could reach exit stairs or windows.
A number of the dead and injured were Negroes.
The fire broke out about 4 p.m. said LOUISE BAXTER, 35, a machine operator on the fourth floor.
"The first thing I knew, the whole floor shook. Someone screamed, 'There's a fire.' I just ran out the back door to the stairs. I couldn't see anything until I was in the street."
Traffic was snarled and thousands of workers, as they poured into the street at the beginning of the evening rush hour, looked on in silent awe as the drama of the rescue effort built up.
Smoke Dense.
Dense smoke poured out of the burning building, hanging low in the gray late-winter sky and drifting into nearby buildings and even down beneath the earth into subway passages.
Big fire trucks poked their aerial ladders into position against the building. Firemen mounted them with hoses to get at the heart of the blaze.
Other firefighters dragged hoses to uper stories of adjacent buildings to try for a horizontal shot at the flames.
From time to time, as it appeared the walls of the burning building might collapse, the firemen were called back to a safer distance.
But as each crisis passed they surged back to the task of combatting the flames.
Commissioner CAVANAGH hurried to the scene of the fire. As it grew more ominous Mayor ROBERT F. WAGNER left City Hall to join him outside the blazing building.
Panic Blamed For Many Fire Deaths.
New York (AP) -- Panic -- that dread word when calamity strikes a crowd of people.
Everything was serene in the fourth floor loft before yesterday's explosion and fire. In a few minutes the huge room was filled with choking black smoke.
The workers, most all of them women, began screaming and milling around. There was a concentrated push toward the back door exit. There was a pileup of humanity, suffocating to death. Then came the flames burning the massed bodies.
Said one woman survivor:
"We all started to scream and yell. We ran toward the back in panic. The smoke started to pour up and in ... There was this pushing and screaming everybody was pushing and everybody was coughing. Some of the girls fell down."
Had there been no panic, said Fire Commissioner EDWARD F. CAVANAGH, JR., the death toll of 24 would not have been nearly so high.
The Times Record Troy New York 1958-03-20
...
I don't think this is it but it was a fire at a Monarch Underwear Factory with an explosion.
That's one of the most famous industrial fires in American history and often used as a reason for the justification of unions particularly with regard to negotiating workplace safety conditions.
A.Mac check this out, The Windsor Hotel, I thought the signs on the building looked familiar, but I guess that would be any old City USA:
A GRUESOME fire and collapse before horrified crowds, people leaping out of windows, others dropping back inside into the flames, their bodies mangled into fragments or reduced to dust in the rubble that was the Windsor Hotel fire of 1899.
The destruction of the seven-story Windsor has grim resonance with the events of Sept. 11, 2001, including the disposition of the remains of the unidentified dead, still a contentious issue more than eight years later.
The Windsor opened on the east side of Fifth Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets in 1873, a time when well-to-do families were beginning to take up permanent residence in hotels.
A brochure from the 1890s promoted the Windsor as the most comfortable and homelike hotel in New York, serving three meals a day.
By 1899, this section of Fifth was at the center of Manhattan s principal promenade, and on Friday, March 17, around 3:10 p.m., the sidewalk crowd watching the St. Patricks Day parade began to cry out as smoke emerged from the hotels second-floor windows.
Their gasps were the first and only alert that many in the hotel received. Within a half hour the building was wrapped in fire.
Many escaped to the street, but scores were trapped on the upper floors. There were a few fire escapes, but every room had a backup a coiled rope down which guests, young and old, were meant to slide. Some managed, but more did not and fell as the friction of the rope burned their hands.
The Windsor fire moved far too fast for ladders to be taken to every window.
A few people were saved in nets stretched out below, and firemen made rescues that seem impossible. One climbed to the second floor on a regular ladder, then used a hand-held scaling ladder with a hook on top to get to the third floor, then hauled it up to a fourth-floor window, where he rescued a trapped woman.
The horrified crowd watched at least a dozen people leap from windows to escape the more terrible fate that was behind them, as The New York Journal put it. Helen Leland, 20, a daughter of the proprietor, Warren Leland, jumped from the sixth floor. Her father could not identify the body. There was every heroism and every horror, The Journal said.
The Windsor collapsed in stages, the trapped appearing at windows and then falling back inside, and by 4:30 the hotel was only a heap of smoking rubble, with a jagged spire of masonry that looked like a tuning fork.
The next day, The New York Times said, The terrible scenes enacted during the early part of the fire will never leave the memories of those who witnessed them.
The Times also recalled scenes of valor. The work of the firemen was something New Yorkers will be proud to recollect for years, it said, and The Mail and Express Illustrated Saturday Magazine published a two-page spread
A photograph taken the following Monday showed a cart filled with salvaged bricks. Tens of thousands of those survive anonymously, reused on other building projects for rear or inner walls.
On Monday, The Times reported the recovery of the first victims, really just ghastly fragments, two headless bodies, one identified as a woman by a metal corset stay. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that the process was so shocking even the workmen, already hardened to their task, turned away.
Newspaper readers in 1899 were made of sterner stuff than those in 2001, and accounts of parts of bodies and dozens of other vivid details were published without hesitation.
Fruit vendors showed up around the site within a few days, and rumors flew. The World wondered Was the Windsor Horror the Work of Thieves Bent On
n Plunder? and dark stories circulated of strange men in halls, but the fire was probably accidental.
According to The Evening Telegram of April 3, 45 bodies were recovered (not all identified), and 41 remained missing. It was assumed that the unidentified would be buried in a potters field, but Mr. Leland called the idea sacrilege and said he would pay for burial in a cemetery himself.
The coffins of 16 unidentified corpses, along with a coffin containing parts of bodies, were buried at Kensico Cemetery in Westchester County, and a monument was planned. But today the plot is unmarked.
...
Thanks CM,
Interesting the number of major fires in American big cities just before the turn of the century 19th/20th.
The signs in the bottom of my image and the spires nailed it as Philly and there were two fires in that approximate location, one in 1897, the other in 1899.
You're welcome, I guess there were a few Windsor Hotels at that time period...
The fire of 1911 was the worst in number of deaths until 2001.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire