1966 — Oct 17, Fire, floor collapses, firefighters killed, Mercantile Building, NYC, NY– 12
— 12 Delafuente. “50 Years Later, Recalling a Manhattan Blaze…, NYT, 10-16-2016.
— 12 Firehouse.com News. “A Historical Look at Major Firefighter Fatality Fires.”
— 12 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
— 12 National Fire Protection Association. Spreadsheet on Large Loss of Life Fires. Feb, 2003.
— 12 O’Donnell. “Oct. 17, 1966, When 12 Firemen Died,” New York Times,” Oct 17, 2006.
Narrative Information
Delafuente/NYT: “Oct. 17 is a sad day for the New York Fire Department. Monday is the 50th anniversary of the fire that, until the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, claimed more firefighters’ lives than any other disaster in the city.
“The short trip that the firefighters made from nearby firehouses on Oct. 17, 1966, started around 9:30 p.m. when they headed to a fire at a building on East 22nd Street, just east of Broadway. Despite the heat and smoke they encountered, firefighters who were there said the source of the blaze — its ‘seat,’ in firefighters’ parlance — had not been obvious. Several firefighters were sent around the block, to 23rd Street, and told to pull a hose through a drugstore there in an attempt to approach the fire from the rear. They went in, and never made it out.
“What was burning in the 22nd Street building, a subsequent investigation showed, was paint and lacquer that had been stored in the basement by an art dealer. What the firefighters who went into Wonder Drug & Cosmetics, at 6 East 23rd Street, across from Madison Square Park, had no way of knowing was that the store and the 22nd Street building shared a basement, and that an interior basement wall had recently been moved to give the 22nd Street building more underground storage space. That meant that the drugstore’s thick floor was poorly supported, and as the fire burned below it collapsed, sending 10 firefighters plunging into the basement. Two others were caught by the flames that quickly roared up to the first floor through the huge hole left by the collapse.
“The death toll was 12: two chiefs, two lieutenants and eight firefighters….” (Delafuente. “50 Years Later, Recalling a Manhattan Blaze that Killed 12 Firefighters,” NY Times, 10-16-2016.)
Firehouse.com News: “A raging fire in the basement of a four-story brick loft building, caused the first floor to collapse, pitching most of the firefighters who were operating there into the roaring inferno. The ensuing collapse of the upper floors made immediate rescue attempts impossible. Many firefighters had close brushes with death that night and many heroic rescues were made. Several firefighters were seriously injured, but 12 died in the collapse, making it the worst tragedy in the history of the FDNY [at the time]. The fire went to five alarms.” (Firehouse.com News. “A Historical Look at Major Firefighter Fatality Fires.”)
NFPA: “Twelve fire fighters lost their lives in New York City on October 17 when a floor beneath them collapsed without warning in a century-old mercantile building. Apparently the fire had been burning in the basement for some time before it was discovered in an adjoining building. Shortly after the twelve men entered the East Twenty-third Street drugstore, timbers supporting the concrete floor at the rear of the building burned through, causing the floor, and the men, to drop into the raging inferno of the basement.” (National Fire Protection Association. “The Major Fires of 1966.” Fire Journal, May 1967, p. 38.)
O’Donnell: “Among them, the dead men left 12 widows and 32 children. It took 14 hours to dig out the dead. Until Sept. 11, 2001, it was the heaviest loss of life in the Fire Department’s history. A lengthy inquiry showed that a cellar wall had been moved, leaving the drugstore’s five-inch-thick terrazzo floor unsupported and vulnerable to collapse….
“…a fire was reported just after 9:30 p.m. in a building at 7 East 22nd Street, near Broadway, where an art dealer stored highly flammable lacquer and other paint supplies in the cellar, according to the Fire Department’s report.
“The smoke was so thick and the heat so intense that the first firefighters to arrive had difficulty entering the building. Fire officers sent crews around the corner to 23rd Street to see if they could enter through the drugstore.
“What fire crews did not know was that the East 22nd Street building shared a cellar with the Wonder Drug store. And in a recent renovation, the dividing cellar wall had been pushed north “toward 23rd Street, giving the art dealer more storage space and shrinking the cellar under the drugstore. The art dealer’s supplies were now stored beneath the drugstore.
“Only a small amount of smoke was wafting out of the drugstore when firefighters went inside. But around 10:40 p.m., as they walked to the back of the store, the floor collapsed with a huge noise, sending 10 firefighters to the burning cellar below. Two others were killed in a flashover of fire on the first floor.” (O’Donnell. “Oct. 17, 1966, When 12 Firemen Died,” NYT,” Oct 17, 2006.)
Sources
Delafuente, Charles. “50 Years Later, Recalling a Manhattan Blaze that Killed 12 Firefighters,” New York Times, 10-16-2016. Accessed 2-19-2020 at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/nyregion/50-years-later-recalling-a-manhattan-blaze-that-killed-12-firefighters.html
Firehouse.com News. “A Historical Look at Major Firefighter Fatality Fires.” Accessed 4/19/2009 at: http://www.firehouse.com/news/2001/6/17_fdny_list.html
National Fire Protection Association. Spreadsheet on Large Loss of Life Fires (as of Feb 2003). (Email attachment to B. W. Blanchard from Jacob Ratliff, NFPA Archivist/Taxonomy Librarian, 7-8-2013.)
National Fire Protection Association. “The Major Fires of 1966.” Fire Journal, May 1967, pp. 36-41.
O’Donnell, Michelle. “Oct. 17, 1966, When 12 Firemen Died,” New York Times,” Oct 17, 2006. At: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E3D91E30F934A25753C1A9609C8B63&sec=&spon