It was the worst fire in the history of New York City. But that didn’t stop poor Irish people from the Five Points area slums from engaging in a dazzling display of looting, which led to one of the biggest free champagne parties ever witnessed.
The city was in the throes of one of the coldest winters on record. In the days that preceded the “Great Fire”, the temperature had dropped to seventeen degrees below zero. On the night of December 16, 1835, there was 2 feet of frozen snow on the ground and the temperature was exactly freezing zero degrees. It was so cold that both the Hudson River and the East River were completely frozen over.
At around 9 p.m., a watchman (the forerunner of a New York City cop) named Warren Hayes was crossing the corner of Merchant (now Beaver Street) and Pearl Street, and thought he smelled smoke. He looked up at the top floor of a five-story building at 25 Merchant Street, rented by Comstock and Andrews, a famous dry goods store, and saw smoke coming from a window. Unbeknownst to Hayes, a gas main had burst and he had ignited some remaining coals in a stove. Hayes immediately ran through the streets yelling “Fire!” Within minutes, the large fire bell above City Hall began blaring loudly, calling out what was left of the New York City Fire Department. The Tombs prison bell, about a mile to the north, also began to ring, summoning volunteer firefighters in that area.
In 1832, New York City was struck by the worst case of cholera in the city’s history. Four thousand people were killed and more than half of the city’s quarter million inhabitants fled the city in fear. This decimated the New York City Fire Department, and by 1835 the Fire Department had less than half its previous membership. The volunteer fire department that responded on December 16, 1835 had spent the previous night fighting a fire on Burlington Street in the East River and was now nearly exhausted. When the local fire department arrived 30 minutes later, due to forty mile per hour winds, the fire had already spread to fifty structures. Buildings were burning on Water Street, Exchange Place, Beaver, Front, and South Street. By midnight, the fire had also consumed Broad and Wall Street, which was the heart of the commercial and financial center of New York City, if not the entire country. The conflagration also engulfed most of the city’s newspaper plants, retail and wholesale stores, and warehouses.
The call went out to every fire department in the city, but to no avail. Seventy-five hook and ladder companies were on the scene less than two hours after the fire started. Hundreds of citizens also pitched in, carrying water in buckets, pails, and even tubs. Unfortunately, due to the cold weather, the fire hoses were mostly useless. In addition, the cistern, wells, and fire hydrants throughout the city were also frozen. Whatever water flowed finely from the hydrants through the hoses only rose ten meters into the air and then quickly turned to ice. What made matters worse, due to higher minds, this mixture of ice and water, weakly coming out of the hoses, was returned to the firefighters themselves, and soon dozens of firefighters turned into living ice structures. Many firefighters poured brandy into their boots to prevent their feet from freezing. Some also drank the brandy, to warm the rest of the body.
Other firefighters ran to the East River and began cutting through the ice to get to the water below. Black Joke Engine No. 33 was washed onto a ship’s deck and began pumping water through gaps in the ice. It directed the water through three other engines, until it finally reached the fire on Water Street. But within a few hours, those four engines also froze up and were no longer good for anything.
Two buildings were saved in a strange way. Barrels of vinegar were removed from the Oyster King restaurant in the Downing Building on Garden Street. This vinegar was poured into several fire trucks and used to put out the fires in the Downing Building and the Journal of Commerce Building next door. But the vinegar ran out and could not be used to save more structures.
As the city was in chaos, a man ran into a church on Garden Street and began playing a dirge on an organ, which could be heard throughout Lower Manhattan. But within minutes, that church caught fire as well, and the organist was seen fleeing the burning building.
Soon the fire spread to Hanover Square, Williams Street, Hanover Street, and Exchange Place. Burning fabric and string from various buildings flew through the air and flew across the East River, igniting the roofs of homes in Brooklyn. The city was on fire so intensely that smoke could be seen as far south as Philadelphia and as far north as New Haven. New York City was so desperate that Philadelphia firefighters were called in from 90 miles away to help fight the blaze.
After consulting with experts, Mayor Cornelius W. Lawrence agreed that the fire could be stopped by blowing up certain buildings in strategic locations, so that the flames could not travel from one building to another. The only problem was that the sale of gunpowder was prohibited in New York City. The nearest ample supply was at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Red Hook, Brooklyn, as well as Governor’s Island. Mayor Strong sent word that the gunpowder was needed immediately, but it did not arrive until noon on December 17, accompanied by eighty marines and a dozen sailors. The military, with the help of James Hamilton, son of former US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, began blowing up buildings, and within hours the fire was contained in Coenties Slip.
As downtown Manhattan continued to smolder, hundreds of Irish men, women and children, from the slums of the Five Points area, rushed into the devastated area, eyes flashing, hands clasping. For a full 24 hours, the thugs looted everything they could get their hands on; stealing capes, frock coats, top hats, and the finest quality silk and satin. Crates and barrels of liquor, beer, and wine were smashed, and crowds drank heavily in the smoky, frigid streets. Fights broke out between drunk and raving rioters, over who had the right to steal what. Ten thousand bottles of the best champagne were also stolen, and what the crowd couldn’t gobble down on the spot, they dragged back to their slums for later consumption.
Philip Hone, noted chronicler and future mayor of New York City, later wrote: “The wretches, who prowled the ruins and became brutally drunk on the champagne and other wines and spirits that filled the streets and byways, seemed to rejoice.” in the misfortune of others”.
Eventually, the area was placed under martial law and was patrolled by Marines from the Navy Yard and by the 3rd and 9th Military Regiments. But this did not completely stop the looters from continuing their criminal frenzy. Dozens ran to unaffected areas outside of the burned zone and set buildings on fire so they could loot those buildings as well. The Marines arrested five arsonists, but a sixth, who was caught setting fire to a building at the corner of Stone and Broad, was seized by angry citizens and immediately hanged from a tree. The frozen body of him was left hanging there and the police didn’t cut it up until three days later.
From the start of the fire, three days passed until the last spark went out. By then, 17 blocks of lower Manhattan, covering 52 acres and consisting of 693 buildings, had burned to the ground. Two people were killed and damage was assessed at $20 million, nearly a billion dollars in today’s money.
$10 million in insurance money was owed for the damage, but only a small amount of that was paid as insurance companies and banks had also burned to the ground, forcing them out of business. Unable to collect on their insurance and unable to obtain loans from banks that no longer existed, hundreds of businesses that burned down during the “Great Fire of New York of 1835” never reopened.
In 1836 the center of the city was rebuilt, with stone and concrete structures, less susceptible to the spread of fires. Some of these buildings are still standing.