This is a photo of a gathering (before the?) funeral for the fire victims.
I suppose I should be out there taking pictures of the aftermath of our 18 inches of snow but....it is so much nicer inside, thinking of history.
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Notes: the Security Mutual building (built 1904, still standing) is visible in the upper right of the photo. The "bump" is a building now occupied by Boscovs Department Store, also still standing. The building right behind where the streetcars are parked, recently renovated in the past couple of years, now houses RiverRead Books, our local independent bookseller.
The actual fire location "probably" was just to the left, outside the range of this photo.
And, don't you wonder how people dressed the way they did (given this was July) without getting heatstroke?
The photo appears to be of the funeral procession to Spring Hill Cemetery, where a mass burial was held for the 21 of the 52 fire victims, who could not be identified. My grandmother was having her car serviced at a garage around the corner, when the fire broke out. She watched, helplessly, as girls, some afire, jumped from upper story windows. The sight affected her for weeks. For the rest of her life, any mention of the subject brought out emotion and she preferred not to speak of it. My grandmother, Jessie Birdsall (Sherwood) Van Atta, was the second woman in Binghamton to learn to drive an automobile.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by my blog, and enlightening me about this photo. I will be sure to let the person who gave me the photo know about this.
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