THE GREAT NYC FIRE's OF 1835 & 1845.....THE GREAT FIRE's OF 1835 & 1845 ..... (article from the Sister of a RET CPT).......1835
The Great Fire ravaged lower Manhattan east of Broadway.
On the cold and windy evening of December 16, 1835, a five-story warehouse on Pearl and Hanover Streets caught fire. Powerful gusts of wind carried the fire to fifty buildings within fifteen minutes. The city?s volunteer fire companies were inadequate to the needs of the growing city. Firefighters came from Brooklyn and New Jersey and Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The temperature hit 17 degrees below zero, and wells and hydrants froze solid. Even the East River was frozen over. When the firefighters were able to get water to pass through their hoses, strong winds lashed the water back in their faces. Firefighters realized that if the flames passed Wall Street, the whole city might go up. The only thing for the firefighters to do was to blow up buildings, with the aid of sailors from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, to break the fire?s progress. That worked, but not until 674 buildings had been consumed. It took two weeks fully to quench the fire. The city bounded by Maiden Lane, Coenties Slip, William Street, and the East River was gone. Yet, because the area had ceased being a residential area, the night fire killed but two people. And within one year, 500 new buildings had gone up in the area. Nonetheless, the fire bankrupted 23 of the city?s 26 insurance companies, and was one of the cluster of unfortunate events?the ?perfect storm??that led to the Panic of 1837 which in turn led to a six-year-long depression. The fire also lent great urgency to the plans to construct a new water system for the city. On July 19, 1845, another fire in much the same area consumed about 300 buildings and killed 30 people.
E272, E288, E311 & E331 got hand-me-downs.