Monday, March 7, 2011

Binghamton Clothing Fire Aftermath

Back in December, I told you that someone I know, in the communications field, was going to give me various "old time Binghamton" photos. They were in the "public domain" and I could publish them on my blog.  I now have these.  I haven't had a chance to go through a lot of these but I wanted to post one of these, as an experiment, since I recently blogged about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the similar fire in Binghamton.  (and if these are photos that I do not have a right to publish, I guess I am going to find out about it.)

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.


If I have the time (and right now I do not) I will try to get some of the other pictures posted at a future date.

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?

2 comments:

  1. 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.

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  2. Thank 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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