On this day in New York · December 5, 1876
The Brooklyn Theatre Fire
A curtain caught fire during the final act of a hit melodrama, and the cheap seats upstairs had only one stairway out.
The facts
- Date
- December 5, 1876, around 11:20 p.m.
- Play
- The Two Orphans, starring Kate Claxton
- Location
- Southeast corner of Washington and Johnson streets, Brooklyn (now the site of 271 Cadman Plaza)
- Toll
- At least 278 dead; 103 unidentified victims share a common grave at Green-Wood Cemetery
On the night of December 5, 1876, a full house at the Brooklyn Theatre was watching the final act of the melodrama The Two Orphans, starring Kate Claxton, when stage manager J. W. Thorpe spotted a small flame near a gas border light above the stage. Carpenters tried to beat out the burning canvas, which only sent it up in a rush of flame that tore across the drops. Most of the crowd in the orchestra and dress circle got out. Upstairs in the family circle, where roughly 400 people had paid fifty cents for the cheapest seats in the house, there was one narrow stairway, and it jammed solid. At least 278 people died that night, most of them from smoke, and more than a hundred of the dead were never identified.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
The fire issued from the lower part of a drop hanging below the rigging loft near the center stage border-light.
Wikipedia's account of how the fire started backstage
Source: Wikipedia -
103 unidentified victims were interred in a common grave at Green-Wood Cemetery, marked by an obelisk
Wikipedia, on the burial of the fire's unidentified dead
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
The fire pushed New York's theaters to strip flammable scenery and paint off their stages and widen their exits, rules that still shape how a theater has to be built. It is also why Green-Wood has a monument to more than a hundred New Yorkers nobody could ever put a name to.
Sources
Get the day it happened, the day it happens.
Every morning brief ends with this day in New York history, and every day adds a page to this almanac. Free, in your inbox.
Free to start. The unsubscribe link actually works.