The Great Fire of 1835

On the night of December 16, 1835, a burst gas pipe ignited by a coal stove touched off a fire in a five story warehouse near Wall and Hanover streets. Gale winds off the northwest drove the flames through the financial district for most of the night, with the temperature down to 17 below zero and the East and Hudson rivers frozen over, so firefighters had to chop through ice for water that then refroze around their own hoses. Around 3am, marines and sailors from the Brooklyn Navy Yard arrived with gunpowder and started blowing up buildings to cut the fire a firebreak. By the time it burned out, somewhere between 530 and 700 buildings across 17 blocks were gone, including the Merchants' Exchange and the Post Office, and the losses came to roughly 20 million dollars, enough to bankrupt all but three of the city's fire insurance companies in a single night.