The Great Fire Of New York 1835 The firemen really had their hands full on Dec. 16, 1835, when a raging fire left the city’s business district in ruins. It was a just another winter night when a watchman making rounds in downtown Manhattan smelled smoke and saw a little cloud building up at the corner of one of the shop. He broke the warehouse door, and he yelled out to the other watchmen and when they went inside they discovered that the fire had already began and was already out of control. Within 15 to 20 minutes, almost 50 buildings were in flames and was spreading rapidly. The temperature that night was 17 degrees below zero. The East River was frozen which made it impossible to get the water to the fire, as it froze in the hoses really …show more content…
The water was so backed up from the hoses and spewed out that it froze almost instantly on the street. The fire was spreading really fast and the heat was so intense that the iron shutters and copper roofs on many warehouses and big shops were melted instantly and were running off in the molten streams. The situation got really bad and worst when the cold winter wind kicked in and helped the fire fan the flames, blowing the fire from building to building. By midnight, the entire block and the business district was in flames, including the Stock Exchange, the merchants exchange, post office, two churches, several major banks, warehouses and dry-goods facilities. The fire was so big that the flames and smokes could be seen all the way in Philadelphia. A fire which got started in a five-story warehouse, lasted more than 15 hours, exhausting the firemen, many of whom were volunteers. Citizens pitched in to help. Desperate for water to extinguish the blaze, firefighters tried to get water from the frozen river, breaking through the ice to get at the water below. The fire was finally put out after firemen blew up buildings around the inferno to create a