Today marks the 100th anniversary of the fire in the New York State Capitol. The fire, which began before dawn, started in the Assembly Library before spreading to the New York State Library.
It took more than half an hour before the first alarm was sounded at the Albany Fire Department. Even with over 150 firefighters fighting the blaze, it was hours before the fire was under control. The fire resulted in the death of one person, Samuel Abbott, a 78 year old Civil War veteran who was working as a night watchman in the Capitol. The fire also caused the destruction of hundreds of thousands of documents and books.
The Capitol fire came four days after the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City. The two fires led to legislation requiring improved fire safety standards.
Legend has it that the ghost of Samuel Abbott haunts the Capitol.
NY marks 100th anniversary of 1911 Capitol fire
4 comments:
A tragedy for sure, but that's a real cool picture. Looks like a still from an old Universal horror film.
Pat,
I was thinking the same thing. Kind of like Frankenstein's castle after the villagers torch it.
When we talked about the history of libraries in library school, it pretty much went like this: "And then such-and-such a historically important library was established in such-and-such a city. And then it burned down. And then such-and-such a historically important library..." For all the difficulty we might have in archiving and retaining electronic info, the cloud is less likely to burn down.
Carmen,
We'll be OK as long as there's no massive electromagnetic pulse.
Post a Comment