Monday, October 17, 1966 was a cold and windy night in Manhattan. At roughly 2130 hours, Mrs. Marion Brown of 7 East 22nd Street advised her husband that she smelled smoke in their apartment located on the fourth floor. Below them in the basement of their building an inferno was occurring in an art dealer shop that would eventually lead to the highest loss of life in the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) prior to 9/11.
In this episode of the Fire Engineering Building Construction Awareness Project, retired FDNY Chief Jerry Tracy leads the group in a discussion about the fire, the building construction factors that lead to the fatal collapse that killed twelve firefighters, and how firefighters today can still learn and heed the lessons from that fateful evening.
RESOURCES
23rd Street Fire Overview (PDF, 1MB)
Ordinary Construction Case Study (PDF, 3MB)
RELATED FIREFIGHTER TRAINING
A Legacy Tip that Could Save a Modern Company
FDNY: The 50th Anniversary of the 23rd Street Collapse (PDF)
The 23rd Street Fire: A Legacy Tip Still Relevant Today
Podcast: The 23rd Street Fire and Collapse
