Brooklyn Theatre fire: Difference between revisions

=== First responders and final evacuation ===

[[File:BrooklynTheatre From Johnson Street.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Brooklyn Theatre from Johnson Street, looking south from the stage area toward the front of the house. On the south wall of the theatre ruins, above the man in the light grey cape, are diagonal markings. These trace the flight of stairs from the gallery down to the second floor corridor and which had once been attached to the south wall of the theatre. The stairs themselves collapsed in the fire. The uppermost opening into masonry on the extreme right, above the man with the top hat, marks where the gallery stairs continued down to street level. Between this opening and the south wall ran a short, north–south corridor.]]

Inside the lobby, Sweeny, District Engineer Farley and his firemen, Cain, and the other police officers eventually cleared the dress circle stairs to work their way up to the doors, where there was the connecting doorway to the family gallery stairway. They tried going up to the family gallery but were stopped by thick smoke.<ref name="OneFiftyStairwell" /> They heard no traffic on the stairway, heard no human sounds. They called up but received no response. Farley ordered one last inspection of the dress circle, but saw no activity. Nor was there any signs of life in the parquet and orchestra, below, now burning fiercely. To Farley the building seemed evacuated, barring, perhaps, a few stragglers. Not wanting to subject himself or others to any further risk, he ordered his men to quit the building.<ref name="OneFiftyStairwell" /> Within minutes, cracks appeared on the exterior theatre walls facing Johnson street, where, within, the heart of the blaze raged. At 11:45&nbsp;pm, less than a half hour after J. W. Thorpe had spied a flame no larger than his hand, the Johnson Street end of the building collapsed and an intense rush of air was drawn in, feeding the flames. Anyone who could speak of events transpiring within the building had already left.<ref name="JohnsonWallCollapse">'Comprehension of the Dangers' "Calamity" ''[[Brooklyn Daily Eagle]] 1876-12-06'' [http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&Continuation=4&BaseHref=BEG%2F1876%2F12%2F06&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar00403&AppName=2 page 4, column 2] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612124333/http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Layout/Includes/BEagle/ArtWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=BEagle&Continuation=4&BaseHref=BEG%2F1876%2F12%2F06&ViewMode=GIF&GZ=T&PageLabelPrint=&EntityId=Ar00403&AppName=2 |date=June 12, 2011 }}</ref>