1899 — March 17, Fire, Windsor Hotel, Fifth Avenue, New York, NY                    —   >45

Compiled by Wayne Blanchard; last edit 1-26-2025 for upload to: http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/

—     45  NFPA. “Famous Hotel Fires.” Quarterly of the NFPA, Vol. 23, No. 3, Jan 1930, p. 297.

—     45  Bodies recovered and 41 others missing according to The Evening Telegram, 4-3-1899.[1]

–33-45  Wikipedia.  “List of Historic Fires.”

Narrative Information

National Fire Protection Association: “The Windsor Hotel, New York, March 17, 1899.”

“This fire is, perhaps, the most memorable fire in hotel history, for it involved the greatest loss of life which has ever occurred in a hotel in this country. Forty-five persons were killed, and this record stands a monument to the tragedy which may be wrought by careless smokers.

“The hotel, a seven-story structure, occupied an entire block on Fifth Avenue between Forty-Sixth and Forty-Seventh Streets. It was of ordinary brick and joist construction, with wide halls, high ceilings, and open stairways and elevator shafts. The Windsor was a very high grade hotel and noted for its excellent management. There were 278 guests registered at the time of the fire.

“On the seventeenth of March, at about 3 P.M., a guest in a front parlor on the second floor lighted a cigar and threw the still blazing match into the street. As it passed the curtains the latter ignited and in an instant were in flames. Without attempting to extinguish the blaze or give an alarm, the perpetrator of the disaster fled from the room and the hotel.

“A few moments afterwards the head waiter, passing the door, found the MOM in flames. Unaided he made a brave effort to subdue the fire, but it was apparent that more help was needed. The St. Patrick’s Day parade was pass­ing at the time. The streets were lined with spectators and guarded by police­men, interested onlookers were leaning out of the windows of the hotel itself, and the strains of many brass bands deadened all other sound. As the head waiter, calling “Fire,” ran into the street and endeavored to reach an alarm box, which, unfortunately, was situated on the other side of Fifth Avenue, he was prevented from crossing by a puzzled policeman, who could not understand the excited man’s incoherent explanations above the din of the music.

“The smoke and ^–flames soon told their own story, and the first alarm was sent in at 3:14 P.M., quickly followed by five additional alarms. Owing to the open construction of the building, the flames ascended with startling rapidity by way of the halls, stairways and in and out of open windows to the top floor. But a few moments elapsed after the first alarm before the entire structure was filled with smoke and flames, and the occupants of the numerous rooms on the several floors were jumping from the windows or imploring help from the multitude that filled the streets below. Aid was accorded as promptly as possible, and the heroism of firemen, policemen and citizens contributed to the saving of many lives.

“The first engine company to arrive came from a station only three blocks away. When it arrived people were already jumping from the hotel win­dows into the street, and from this moment it was evident that the hotel was doomed to destruction. Extra apparatus was summoned and every effort put forth for the saving of life first and the preservation of adjoining buildings next. Both of these objects were successfully accomplished as far as possible, but when count had been taken forty-five persons had lost their lives and a property loss of more than $900,000 had been sustained.

“The Windsor had iron ladder fire escapes on two sides and safety ropes in every room, but neither proved adequate means of escape. The latter, in fact, were responsible for several fatalities. Many rescues were made by fire­men over aerial ladders and by means of scaling ladders, and at great risk to both firemen and rescued persons. The fire escapes were literally swarming with people descending to the street. Life nets were used on two sides of the building. Some persons jumped into them from as high as the third story and were saved.

“In speaking of the rescue work, Chief Bonner of the fire department stated, ‘I feel certain that no loss of life, by persons jumping from the win­dows, occurred after the arrival of the department. There was no living person standing at any of the windows while the walls remained standing. The men rescued all whom they saw. No head was shown at a window in vain.’

“Within a short time a part of the front wall fell, owing to the weight of the heavy water tank on the roof, said to contain 100,000 gallons of water. On the Forty-sixth Street side the walls had fallen completely forty-five minutes after the fire started. At five o’clock the structure was a complete wreck, and a little later the only wall to remain standing slid down to its base like a closing fan.

“As a result of this holocaust steps were taken by various authorities to make it impossible for a hotel to burn as the Windsor burned, but it was only three years later that in the same city another hotel fire occurred taking a toll of twenty more lives—and again inferior construction and inadequate exits played their part.” (National Fire Protection Association. “Famous Hotel Fires.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 23, No. 3, January 1930, pp. 297-300.)

Wikipedia: “The hotel, a seven-story structure, occupied an entire block on Fifth Avenue between Forty-Sixth and Forty-Seventh Streets. It was of ordinary brick and joist construction, with wide halls, high ceilings, and open stairways and elevator shafts. The Windsor was a very high grade hotel and noted for its excellent management. There were 278 guests registered at the time of the fire…. Forty-five persons were killed.” (NFPA. “Famous Hotel Fires.” Quarterly of the NFPA, Vol. 23, No. 3, Jan 1930, p. 297.)

“The Windsor Hotel was located at 575 5th Avenue (at the corner of East 47th Street) in Manhattan, New York.  On St Patrick’s Day 1899 a fire destroyed the hotel. The firemen did their best but were hampered by the weather and the huge crowds that had been observing the parade. Almost 90 people died (estimates vary), with numerous bodies landing on the pavement, presumably of those who had thrown themselves to the street, preferring that death to being burned alive.”  (Wikipedia.  Windsor Hotel (Manhattan).)

Newspapers

March 18, NYT: “The Windsor Hotel, which fronted on Fifth Avenue, extending from Forty-Sixth to Forty-seventh Street, caught fire yesterday afternoon and was reduced in a few brief hours to a heap of smoldering ruins.  14 person were killed, fifty-two were injured more or less severely, and many are still missing….

“The fire that made an uncouth and terrible mass of rubbish of one of the city’s finest hotels was kindled by the tiny blaze that flickered on the head of a discarded match.  An unknown man, a guest of the hotel, was standing about 3 o’clock in a front parlor on the second floor…close to a bay window which was hung with lace curtains…. The guest lighted a cigar or cigarette, and tossed the match, still blazing, to the street.  Just then the curtains blew back and caught fire from the passing match.  They were all ablaze in an instant.  The man who had thrown the match turned and ran.  At that moment the head waiter of the hotel, John Foy, who had been passing through the hallway and saw the incident, ran in and attempted to extinguish the blaze in the curtains.  He burned his hands badly and had to beat a retreat, while the flames spread rapidly to the drapery above the curtains and then to the walls.

“While this was going on the St. Patrick’s Day paraders were marching gaily up Fifth Avenue in front of the hotel, and the side-walks were lined with thousands of people keeping time to the lilt of Irish tunes, while hundreds watched from the windows of the hotel.  Foy ran downstairs shouting ‘Fire! Fire!’ and a porter, James Carron, carried the news to the office. The smoke began to curl from the windows of the parlor floor.  Foy made for the street, still shouting ‘Fire! Fire!’ but his voice was drowned by the music.

“The Irish Volunteers had just gone past, and the line of carriages was passing the hotel when Foy emerged and tried to cross the street.  An Irish patrolman apparently could not understand it, and ordered him back.  He finally broke across the street, shouting ‘Fire!’ and by this time the smoke had attracted some attention….

“Foy ran…to a corner…to find a firebox…and Police Commissioners Abell, Hess, and Sexton, who had been riding in a carriage in the parade, had the carriage stopped and went into the hotel lobby to see what they could do….

“The flames soon filled the parlor, where they originated, and then went roaring upward in that end of the building… They soon burst from the windows on every floor to the top one – the sixth.  Then they reached the roof…..the heads of panic-stricken people protruded from the hotel windows, turning now toward the flames and now toward the sidewalk, and calling for help in tones that made the hearers sick.

“The fire spread to the centre and to the rear. On the sixth floor it swept northward with an irresistible rush, carrying woodwork and walls before it till it reached the wall on the Forty-seventy Street side.  It also traveled northward in the lower floors, but not so rapidly as on the top one, which it crossed in about five minutes. The hotel was one of wide halls and vestibules, a delight to guests, but a terrible aid to the fire. It was a building of drafts, where the flames made easy progress, and as they spread northward on the lower floors, wherever they met an elevator shaft, of which there were several, they leaped up through.  They broke into the rooms of maddened men and women, and in all parts of the building drove them through the windows in an effort to seize the one remaining chance of safety.

“Some of the fleeing guests and servants threw out the safety ropes, which had been placed in the bedrooms as means of escape in case of fire, and started down them, often relaxing their holds as the agonizing friction of their hands against the rope proved too much to endure. Others lost their heads completely and finding themselves unable to escape by halls and stairways, sprang from the windowsills to probable and often certain death below.

“It was only a brief time before the hotel was in flames from basement to roof. An hour after the flames were first discovered the building was completely gutted, a few fragments of the walls standing in places, while a chimney near Forty-seventy Street, erect and bare, excited the wonder of the onlookers as to when it would fall.  The whole centre of the building had melted with succeeding crashes into a vast heap of ash-besprinkled bricks.  The two big lamps on handsome pillars still stood unharmed before the ruined entrance.  But the Windsor had gone….

“The work of the firemen was something New Yorkers will be proud to recollect for years.  The first alarm was answered at 3:20 o’clock by Engine Company No. 65. The second alarm was skipped, the third, fourth, and fifth alarms, however, coming in rapid succession….Some of the first firemen that came entered the lobby of the hotel with policemen and some men who had been parading and rushed to the rescue.  The firemen took the hose apparatus fastened to the elevator and turned the water on, directing it wherever they saw traces of the flames, while the other rescuers pushed out into the street the frightened guests who had assembled in the lobby.  All in the lobby soon had to make good their escape, and the firemen thereafter had to do their fighting from the outside….

“…two fire escapes descended along the south wall of the north wing of the hotel.  The hotel also had two fire escapes on the rear wall of its central portion, and two each on Forty-seventy and Forty-sixth Streets, and down all of these fire escapes some guests made their way or were carried by firemen. The firemen turned their hose on from the neighboring buildings on Forty-sixth and Forty-seventy Streets, from roofs and windows, and also kept wet the houses which were threatened with catching fire, and by their work practically confined the flames to the doomed hotel….

“The fire burnt itself out rapidly, meeting practically no fireproof construction in the building.  The walls fell in short order, and almost entirely inward.  Almost all of the central part of the hotel had crashed and crumbled into ruins before 4 o’clock, and at 4:20 the wall at Forty-sixth Street… seemed to slide down to its base like a shutting fan, while an enormous cloud of dense smoke, flecked with white ashes, rose to the sky.  The Forth-seventh Street wall lasted for about an hour, its fall occurring about the same time as the fall of what remained of the main part of the hotel.  The fire was under control at 6:55 P.M.

“The terrible scenes enacted during the early part of the fire will never leave the memories of those who witnessed them. Men, women, and even children slid or dropped from ropes suspended from the windows or leaped out in delirium to death or terrible injury. One man on the Forty-seventy Street side fell upon another man on the street, somehow within the fire lines, and both are believed to have been instantly killed.  At some windows men and women stood and wrung their hands in despair.  At others they screamed wildly for aid….

“One handsomely dressed woman, later identified as Mrs. Amelia Paddock of Irvington, N.Y. , appeared at a window of a room on the fourth floor and held out her arms to the crowd, then raised her hands as if calling for mercy on her soul.  Then she clambered to the window sill, poised for an instant, and leaped, while a smothered groan went up from the crowd.  She turned like a top and struck the iron railing in front of the hotel, her lifeless body bounding off into the areaway.

“Shortly afterward an unknown man jumped from the roof on the Forty-sixth Street side of the hotel.  Another one was seen to jump from the Fifth Avenue side, and two more from the rear.  Then two women jumped from the room into the court yard below. A mother and her babe were seen at an upper window of the hotel.  The mother threw the child to the street, dashing it to pieces, and then jumped to death herself. Many persons were saved by jumping from the roof of the section of the hotel on Forty-seventh Street to the roof of the building 6 East Forth-seventy Street below.

“Meanwhile the firemen had run up ladders at many of the windows and had begun to take down people as fast as possible.  There were feats of heroism which brought cheers from the watching throngs….

“At 11 o’clock the ruins were still too hot for any thorough search to be made for bodies.  Five engines were pouring streams of water on them, and dense clouds of steam were arising from the mass.  Chief Devery, who remained at the scene of the fire until late, said that it would be impossible to go to work looking for bodies until 8 o’clock this morning.  Six or eight thousand people flocked around the ruins and a detail of 150 policemen, under Acting Capt. Kane, with difficulty kept the crowd back.  At 1:30 o’clock this morning the debris was still burning briskly….”  [Fourteen known dead at press-time were then listed, including the wife and a daughter (20) of the hotel proprietor – the wife being burned and the daughter killed when she jumped from the roof.]   (New York Times. “Windsor Hotel Lies in Ashes,” March 18, 1899.)

March 22, NYT: “The workmen searching the ruins of the Windsor Hotel found yesterday portions of the bodies of three additional victims of the fire which destroyed the building last Friday.  These do not include the fragment of a corpse – the lower portion of a woman’s trunk – which was dug out of the ruins at 1:15 o’clock yesterday morning….the three fragments coming later were respectively labeled ‘Body No. 3,’ ‘Body No. 4’ and ‘Body No. 5.’  Nos. 1 and 2 are bodies recovered on Monday.” (New York Times.  “More Fire Victims Found,” March 22, 1899.)

March 25, NYT: “The searchers among the ruins the Windsor Hotel came upon four more deposits of human bones yesterday and last night. The deposits were separated by considerable distances, and this fact led the police to enter them at the Morgue as portions of four bodies….

“The dismal work of mining for the dead was prosecuted with increased vigor yesterday, the 150 men who went off duty at 8 o’clock A.M. being replaced by 300 workmen. The ruins are being attacked from every side by the diggers, although the greatest efforts are still being concentrated about the centre in the vicinity of the elevator shaft. After a great deal of difficulty, owing to the accumulation of heavy iron beams, the elevator shaft was reached yesterday. Contrary to expectations only one body has been taken from this vicinity. It was believed that nearly a dozen people had lost their lives in a vain effort to escape by means of the elevator. The bottom of the shaft is filled with water, and it is thought that when this is removed some bodies may be found.  A great deal of water is still being encountered in various parts of the ruins, and two steam pumps were kept at work constantly throughout yesterday and last night.

“Although many tons of debris have been taken from the ruins the work is not more than one-third completed. The whole mass was beginning yesterday to give out a sickening odor and it is thought that many of the residents in the vicinity will have to move before the work is done….”  (New York Times.  “Hotel Ruins Yield Three,” March 25, 1899.)

Blanchard note: The names of 19 of the victims can be found at Find a Grave. “Windsor Hotel Fire Victims – March 1899” at: https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/336566?page=1#sr-197580711

Sources

Find a Grave. “Windsor Hotel Fire Victims – March 1899.” Accessed 1-26-2025 at: https://www.findagrave.com/virtual-cemetery/336566?page=1#sr-197580711

National Fire Protection Association. “Famous Hotel Fires.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 23, No. 3, January 1930, pp. 297-308.

New York Times Christopher Gray). “A Day of Heroism and Horror.” 1-7-2010. Accessed 1-26-2025 at: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/realestate/10scapes.html

New York Times. “Hotel Ruins Yield Three,” March 25, 1899. Accessed at:  http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9402E2DB103BE631A25756C2A9659C94689ED7CF

New York Times. “More Fire Victims Found,” March 22, 1899.  Accessed at:  http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9401E2D91730E132A25751C2A9659C94689ED7CF

New York Times. “Windsor Hotel Lies in Ashes,” 3-18-1899. Accessed at:  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C05E3DE153CE433A2575BC1A9659C94689ED7CF

Wikipedia. “List of Historic Fires.”  4-19-2009 at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historic_fires

[1] This NYC paper (no longer published) is cited by Christopher Gray in a New York Times article, “A Day of Heroism and Horror.” 1-7-2010.)