Fire Is Not Cool

[mrdankelly]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I'm a bit of a disaster aficionado, and the disasters that most hold my attention are Chicago ones. We've had some dandy fires: a little conflagration in 1871 that you might have heard about and the horrifying Iroquois Theater Fire which crisped hundreds of kids and their guardians. The Eastland Disaster

Comments

[sclerotic_rings]

I heard that story, too: in my case, I went to St. Ann's Catholic School out on Hazel Crest, and the nuns always related that story to explain why we were to take fire drills seriously. And like you, it always scares the hell out of me.

[seriesfinale]

Richard Wilmington's book about the histroy of theatre in Chicago (the name slips me now...)has a pretty chilling account of the Iroquois fire.

[oblomova]

There are some really good documentary photographers who did work on Our Lady of the Angels. Lee Balterman, who had a gallery show this fall that I missed, has some images here.

And Art Shay also shot some photos that day. I interviewed him for the Reader a few years ago and he said, aside from the day he figured out that his 21-year-old son who disappeared in Florida was dead and never coming back, the saddest day in his life was covering that fire.

I always wanted to read Stewart O'Nan's book on the Hartford circus fire in the 1940s. My dad told me about it because an older boy in his neighborhood (he grew up in New Britain, CT) was there that day and cut a hole with his penknife in the canvas and helped many people escape that way.

P.S.

[oblomova]

I don't know why the gallery mislabeled them as "Our Lady of the Angles." But this is Chicago, and I'm sure angles were worked somewhere.

The Circus Fire

[edhsinc]

Stewart O'Nan's book was the first I read when my interests were drawn to disasters/tragedies: I picked it up, and couldn't put it down. Equally compelling (and I am not biased when I say that - really!) is author Jay Bonansinga's book, The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy (mentioned above in Dan's initial entry on this topic).

Both books are excellent.

Ted Wachholz

Eastland Disaster Historical Society

Re: The Circus Fire

[oblomova]

Okay, I heard this rumor years ago that Harpo Studios is supposed to be haunted by ghosts from the Eastland, because it's built on the site of a warehouse which served as a temporary morgue after the disaster. Have you ever heard that?