BUSHWICK AFLAME

Jonathan Mahler, The New York Times media

reporter and author of the critically

acclaimed Ladies and Gentlemen,

the Bronx is Burning, moderates this panel

exploring Bushwick’s 1970s nadir.

Photographer Meryl Meisler,

a tenant lawyer, an FDNY fire marshal, a

Community Board manager, and a displaced

resident will discuss their experiences on the

frontlines of urban neglect.

Part of a four-part thematic series on

Brooklyn and fire, presented with

Green-Wood Cemetery. 

Brooklyn’s On Fire: 

Bushwick is Burning

Monday, November 17, 6:30pm

$5 / Free for BHS Members

NEW YORK CITY TIMELINE - 1796

February        

English actor Joseph Jefferson makes his New York City debut in The Provoked Husband.    **    New York City's council solicits bids for a municipal water system, receives two. Nothing is done.

Mar 26                 

Matthew Clarkson, Thomas Eddy, John Murray, Jr., Isaac Sloatenburgh, and John Watts, are authorized by the state of New York to build a state prison on newly-acquired property on Greenwich Street in New York City, to be known as Newgate.

November

The New York City owner of a Barclay Street building destroyed by fire this month starts a public subscription drive for financial aid in recouping his losses.

December        

A warehouse fire in lower Manhattan spreads northward from Wall Street, destroying close to 70 buildings between there and Maiden Lane, and costing $1,000,000. Water from the Tea Pump is used in fighting the blaze.    **    New York City's council once again solicits bids for a municipal water system, receives two (one from Westchester doctor Joseph Browne), both of which die in committee.

Dec 6                 

Leather dresser William Thomson, son-in-law of the Hardenbrook family, who took over the Collect property in lower Manhattan a few days ago, advertises in the New York Minerva promoting his tea water pump business on the property and countering some bad publicity.

City

Some black members of the John Street Church ask Bishop Francis Asbury to conduct separate services for them. He creates the African Chapel  (later the Zion A. M. E. Church) under the jurisdiction of the Methodist Episcopal Church.    **    The council rejects a state offer to purchase the site of the former Colles Water Works for a prison, turns the land into a dump for street waste.    **    Yellow fever kills several dozen people.    **    John Fitch tests his screw-propeller steamboat on New York City's Collect

 Pond. Passengers include Robert Fulton, Chancellor R. Livingston, passenger and inventor Nicholas Roosevelt, and young John Hutchings, who acts as steersman. John Stevens also experiments with steam on the pond.    **    The city attempts to get property owners around The Collect to agree to a canal to drain the pond. Nothing happens.    **    A steeple is added to St. Paul's Chapel.    **    The approximate date Benjamin Davis erects the Broadway House tavern on Broadway at Grand Street.     **    James Blackwell erects a clapboard farmhouse on Blackwell’s Island (formerly Varckens Eylandt, or Hog Island; later Welfare, then Roosevelt Island).    **    John Rogers buys four acres of the former Warren estate in lower Manhattan. The property will become the site of the first house to be built on Washington Square North (No. 20) in 1828 and 1829.

©  2013         David Minor         Eagles Byte

Wooden World

September 23, 2000

If you were inland from Menominee, Michigan, on the evening of October 8th, 1871, and you looked eastward toward town, you might see the glow of the setting sun. Wrong direction? Of course. It was the glow of not-distant-enough flames. On this day major fires would begin raging in Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. The first two (Chicago and Peshtigo) were decidedly deadly. Chicago's flames killed 300 and left 90,000 homeless. Peshtigo's dead numbered somewhat over 1200. Menominee faced the same threat.

The western Great Lakes had seen very little rain since spring. Wood frame houses in the lumber towns lined streets covered in sawdust. The surrounding land was studded with piles of scrap from the sawmills; dust filled the hot, dry air. And then. Deer were erupting out of the woods, as well as wolves, and smaller wild animals. The roads eastward were soon filled with cattle, horses and wagons as those on the small outlying farms headed rapidly toward the town and the waters of Green Bay. The passenger steamer Northern City could be seen off across the waters to the east, headed toward town. Exiles from Peshtigo were making their way into town, as well as escapees from nearby flame-killed villages. The steamer docked and the captain agreed, even as crew members stomped out wind-born sparks, to take women and children aboard. Said he'd stay moored there as long as possible.

There can be moments of humor, even under the threat of annihilation. A drayman unloaded a cargo of furniture destined for one of the mansions on the far side of town. As he moved away from the pier a passer-by told him the house wouldn't survive. He should take the furniture back to the boat. He kept going, telling the advice-giver that the insurance company would pay for the furniture if it went up in flames. But not if it were back on the ship.

The fires could be seen from village now. Men formed into crews and began digging a trench across the road that led into town, beating out flames that leapt the barrier with their shirts, laying face down briefly in the marshy water when waves of scorching heat flowed over their heads. Their efforts paid off. As dawnlight overcame flamelight, they knew they'd saved their town.

There were a two surprises left, non-threatening ones. As women began coming down the steamboats gangplank, some leading children. a few tallish forms kept their faces hidden, struggled with long skirts. A townsman walked up to one of the latter, and with a curse planted a boot firmly in the seat of the skirt and knocked a few other figures to the ground. Seems a half-dozen men of the town were more afraid of fire fighting than they were of cross-dressing. Getting in touch with their feminine side, no doubt. The other surprise? The waters of Green Bay had been lowered a bit by the intense heat. The Northern City was stuck firmly on a sandbar.

Script 189

© 2000 David Minor / Eagles Byte