This year coming up the Brooklyn Academy of Music will celebrate its 150 year anniversary as the oldest arts center in America. In the past of BAM’s history there was a brutal fire that burned down the major institution’s first location. Since it was in 1903 nobody in the present knows what happened in detail. But there are plenty of news articles and archives that can give us reliable information. According to the BAM archive and New York Times article on the fire there are two similar stories with two different vantage points.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is known as America’s oldest learning arts center as it started in 1864 as it says in BAM: The Complete Works. According to BAM archives, BAM was on Montague Street until November 30th, 1903 when it was lost to a morning fire. The fire started around 8:45am caused by a little explosion within the building startling the staff of BAM while they were in the middle lf taking down the set. The explosion happened near the stage area most likely caused by a gas leak. Stagehands immediately began to alert everyone and ran down Montague Street to sound the fire alarm and alert neighboring buildings and businesses. The streets became flooded with locals and workers trying to save whatever they could from the fire, the streets started filling with furniture and important items. Other stagehands were trying to help out by trying to calm the flames with buckets of water but that wasn’t enough to stop the building from coming to its end. Eventually the whole auditorium was aflame and the roof began to cave in. A fire crew did not arrive until twenty minutes later and by then it was too late. The firemen gave up on saving the BAM building and began trying to preserve the surrounding buildings before the flames could get to them. Three more fire crews arrived after that, even though they had given up on saving the BAM building. They were more focused on putting out the fire to save the other buildings like the saloon that was next door, unfortunately that was a lost cause because it was crushed by the falling debris. When watching a video where they showed the windows of the surrounding buildings shattered because of the heat. The saloon next door of BAM was burned down too as a domino effect. The only remains of the BAM building after the fire got putout were the two large facades.
In the New York Times archives article “Brooklyn Academy of Music in Ruins” there’s an inside perspective of what happened when the fire was caused by electricity from a blown out fuse connecting a big “Welcome” sign. Shortly before the fire men were testing out the wiring for the light that is when a burst of flame ignited the stage spreading to the entire building. Some men ran to warn and evacuate the building while some tried to stop the fire. There as a desperate attempt to stop the flames with a water hose but the fire was too intimidating making the men flee the building before the worst case scenario. At 8:47am the fire was first seen and at 9:06am is when the first fire crew was able to arrive to the scene. There was barely any water pressure coming from the mains and as the firemen would pump but there was barely a stream of water which didn’t go inside the building at all. At the time Hugh McLaughlin, the veteran politician and former fireman was a resident at 163 Remsen Street, he was having dinner with his family when he was interrupted by Supreme Court Justice Almet F. Jenks and clerk John B. Byrne. They tried to warn McLaughlin of the danger of fire with reasoning on why he should leave his home with his family. McLaughlin despite the neighboring flames approaching refused to leave his home and his wife stood by his side. Compromising with McLaughlin’s stubbornness the fire department ran a hose through his house to fight off the flames from the rear of the house. Panic happening all around him McLaughlin kept calm and gave suggestions to the firemen fending off the flames try to make its way through the neighborhood.
Though very similar both the New York Times article and the BAM archive had two different vantage points of what happened during the fire that burned down BAM’s first location on Montague Street. In the BAM archive the story did not include a personal experience from a primary source but was very in depth with detail of the outside perspective as oppose to the New York Times article there was more of the inside perspective. Considering that there was a video to help implement detail into the story of how the firemen were trying to put out the fire but there was not enough water pressure. The video showed the viewer how people were trying to help from the roofs of his buildings. The story of Hugh McLaughlin’s refusal to leave his home during the fire also gave us another outside perspective during the fire except it was blocks away from the BAM location. But still his perspective was nonetheless viable to create a story. In the end both stories were similar to which they both had to do with the BAM fire in 1903 and had outside perspectives.
The different perspectives and vantage points of the BAM fire of 1903 can give the mind freedom of imagery. The details given in both the news article and BAM archive helped viewers to actually visualize the tragic accident as if it was a personal memory. If you read in between to the lines you can find more stories and views of what happened. There are more ways than one to view an article and that was two pointed out to open up mind. The BAM now stands strong as it emerged into an even bigger institution after the incident of the fire on 30 Lafayette Avenue.
Serafin, Steven. BAM: the complete works. New York: Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2011.
New York Times archives. Brooklyn Academy of Music Ruins. New York: The New York Times, 1903
BAMorg. Academy of Music Fire. New York: Brooklyn Academy of Music, 1903
McCarren, Patrick. This Week in BAM History: Burning Down the House. New York: Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2011
