1917 — June 13, sugar dust explosion/fire, American Sugar Refining Plant, Brooklyn NY-12

–12 Meek. Explosive Properties of Sugar Dusts (Georgia Institute of Technology Thesis). p. 14.
–12 National Fire Protection Association. Report of Important Dust Explosions. 1957, p. 68.
–12 Price, David James. Dust Explosions: Causes and Methods of Prevention. 1922, p. 138.

Narrative Information

Price: “A sugar refining plant [referring to photo] in Brooklyn, N.Y., destroyed by an explosion and fire on June 13, 1917. Twelve men were killed, 24 injured and the property loss estimated at $1,000,000.” (Price. Dust Explosions. 1922, p. 138.)

Newspapers

June 14: “A terrific explosion last night about 11 o’clock on the fifth floor of the seven story brick mixing building of the plant of the American Sugar Refining Company in the block bounded by South Third and South Fourth streets, Kent Avenue and the East River, Brooklyn, rocked the waterfront and ripped loose the entire front of the building from the second floor upward to the roof, hurling it across the street. The blast was followed immediately by a burst of flame that swept through the structure, brilliantly lighted up the East River and the lower tip of Manhattan, and which was not brought under control until after three hours of hard fighting.

“Reports received by the Fire and Police departments and by Fire Marshal Brophy at 3 o’clock this morning indicated that of the 500 men, mostly negroes, Lithuanians, Polaks and Slovaks, working in the night shift on the seven floors of the building, twenty have been killed or buried beneath those parts of the building which were ripped away by the force of the explosion, with more than a hundred injured. Of the injured seventeen are in the Eastern District Hospital, the Williamsburg Hospital, the Cumberland Street Hospital, with ten others in scattered hospitals throughout Brooklyn so seriously injured, with their hair burned from their heads and their skins shriveled from their bodies, that they are not expected to live through to-day. Scores of others were attended at the scene of the fire by ambulances or taken to hospitals for treatment for minor injuries. It is not believed that more than 100 of the 500 workmen escaped injury of some sort.

“Officials refused last night to hazard a guess as to the cause of the explosion, but firemen and patrolmen doing rescue work or fighting the flames freely expressed the opinion that the blast could have come only from a bomb or large quantities of explosives. The force of the explosion was so great that besides tearing out the front of the building as if it had been so much paper it smashed windows in houses several blocks away, sent tenement house dwellers fleeing to the streets in terror and hurled to the floor a score of men who were lounging against the bars of three saloons across the street from the building.

“The great tongue of flame that poured out through the destroyed front of the building lighted up the neighboring blocks as if it had been daylight and within half an hour a crowd of 25,000 persons thronged the streets watching the fire and being pushed back with difficulty by police reserves from several stations. Two alarms were quickly turned in by the first fire company to reach the scene, and then came in rapid succession a third and fourth alarm and finally the ‘7-7,’ a call that brought out, besides the apparatus from Brooklyn, twelve engines and four trucks from Manhattan – all of the Manhattan apparatus that usually answers a three alarm fire at the Manhattan end of the Williamsburg Bridge. Four fireboats steamed up the East River and added their lines of hose to the force fighting the flames from the land, but even with the most formidable force that has fought a waterfront fire within recent years it was believed at 3 o’clock that the flames could not be prevented from spreading to other parts of the plant.

“The blast on the fifth floor went off with the power and the noise that accompany the detonation of large quantities of dynamite. Fifty men were working on that floor, packing sugar into barrels for shipment. Some of them were singing when the blast came. The next instant there was a blinding flash of flame coming on the heels of the explosion.

“The men, surrounded by flashing tongues of flame, with their hair burned from their heads, their clothing falling from them in ashes, screamed in such mortal terror that their cries were heard on the street above the roar of the flames and the crashing of the bricks and timbers as great sections of the side walls on the South Third street and Kent avenue sides of the building bulged outward and then crashed to the pavement. The fifth floor was on fire in a hundred places, beams and bricks from the toppling upper stories were raining down on them, as the fifty men scrambled and crawled to the exits. Down the stairs they ran, crazed with fear and pain, and joined the masses of workmen from the lower floors that streamed toward the doors. From many of these doors their escape was barred by leaping tongues of flame or by huge piles of bricks and timber that had been torn from the walls by the power of the explosion. Scores of them managed to make their way to the street, where they toppled in unconscious heaps as soon as the crisp night air met their bared and burned bodies….” (The Sun, New York. “Many Thought to be Dead in Brooklyn Fire. Explosion Traps Hundreds in 7 Story Sugar Refinery on Water Front.” 6-14-1917, p. 1.)

June 15: “New York, June 14 – After a search of the ruins began today at the Brooklyn plant of the American Sugar Refining Co., where explosion and fire caused estimated property loss of a million dollars last night, the authorities expressed the opinion that the loss of life would not exceed 10 persons.” (Orange County Times-Press, Middletown, NY. “Loss of Life in Sugar Plant Fire is Ten.” 6-15-1917, p. 1.)

Sources

Meek, Richard Lee. Explosive Properties of Sugar Dusts (Georgia Institute of Technology Thesis). April 1952. Accessed 3-14-2023 at: https://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/16074/meek_richard_l_195205_phd_126075.pdf

National Fire Protection Association. Report of Important Dust Explosions: A Record of Dust Explosions in the United States and Canada Since 1860. Boston: NFPA, 1957.

Orange County Times-Press, Middletown, NY. “Loss of Life in Sugar Plant Fire is Ten.” 6-15-1917, p. 1. Accessed 3-14-2023 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/middletown-orange-county-times-press-jun-15-1917-p-1/

Price, David James. Dust Explosions: Causes and Methods of Prevention. Boston, MA: National Fire Protection Association, with permission of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 1922.

The Sun, New York. “Many Thought to be Dead in Brooklyn Fire. Explosion Traps Hundreds in 7 Story Sugar Refinery on Water Front.” 6-14-1917, p. 1. Accessed 3-14-2023 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/new-york-sun-jun-14-1917-p-1/