It started on the frigid night of December 16. Flames broke out inside a warehouse on Pearl Street, the center of New York’s dry-goods district.
“The city’s undermanned volunteer fire brigades rushed to the scene, but what little water could be pumped from the nearby hydrants turned to ice in the frigid night air, and the crews—exhausted from fighting a blaze the night before—were soon completely overwhelmed,” wrote Ric Burns and James Sanders in New York: An Illustrated History.
[Above: the fire as seen from Williamsburg, by Nicolino Calyo]
With help from strong winds, flames leaped from shops to warehouses to the majestic Merchants Exchange (below, in a 1909 illustration).
Within hours, 20 blocks and 600 buildings bounded by South, Broad, and Wall Streets and Coenties Slip, were ablaze.
New York had experienced devastating fires before, particularly in 1776. This fire was something else though—so intense, it could reportedly be seen from Philadelphia.
The cold made it tough to get under control. “Whiskey was poured into boots to prevent [firefighters’] toes from icing up,” states Paul Hashagen in Fire Department, City of New York.
“By the time the flames were out, a quarter of the city’s business district had been destroyed, including every one of the stone Dutch houses that had survived the fires of the Revolution,” wrote Burns and Sanders.
Hundreds of businesses were ruined. Most of the city’s insurance companies went bankrupt. Amazingly, only two people perished.
As horrific as it was, the Great Fire of 1835 had a few upsides. It forced the city, which rebuilt within a year, to organize a professional fire department and shore up building codes.
And it showed the need for a modern water-supply system, resulting in the opening of the Croton Aqueduct and reservoir on 42nd Street seven years later.
[Map of the destroyed area: CUNY]
Tags: Croton Aqueduct, Destruction of New York City, Downtown New York tragedy, Famous Fires New York City, Fire New York City, Great Fire 1835, New York in 1835, Nicolino Calvo, Pearl Street
Ephemeral New York 
January 25, 2013 at 3:33 am |
There are 2 Water Streets in Manhattan…..
The first is In the Financial District, and the other one in the Lower East Side….How did that happen?
January 25, 2013 at 6:08 pm |
Really only one Water Street that’s broken up into three sections actually. Construction of Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and their approach ramps, and later razing of streets to build housing projects along East River, caused Water Street to stop and start in three different sections. Pretty sure the numbering system remains sequential (ie: the building numbers don’t begin at “1” for each section of Water Street).
January 25, 2013 at 4:56 pm |
Many historians claim that this fire was a contributing factor to the U.S. fiscal Panic of 1837. Considering roughly $20 million in losses were caused by the hungry fire, it must have had some effect on the national economy.
January 25, 2013 at 6:11 pm |
“A quarter of the city’s business district [was] destroyed, including every one of the stone Dutch houses that had survived the fires of the Revolution…”
For a student of Dutch NY history, that part always breaks my heart. Not one trace of our Dutch forefathers in all of Lower Manhattan survives.
January 26, 2013 at 9:16 pm |
And I always thought the old Dutch buildings were willfully demolished or allowed to decay… I never realized they were destroyed in a fire!
January 25, 2013 at 6:16 pm |
I hear you. Not one!
January 25, 2013 at 6:39 pm |
[…] When a lot of NYC burned down (Ephemeral New York) […]
January 26, 2013 at 4:31 pm |
So was the cause ever determined?
January 27, 2013 at 5:49 pm |
Reportedly it was a burst gas pipe that had been ignited by a coal stove:
http://www.lykensfire.com/incidents.php?o.51
February 14, 2013 at 2:53 am |
Reblogged this on CROTON | History & Mysteries and commented:
Here is an account of the devastating New York City fire of 1835 that led to the construction of the Croton Dam and Aqueduct.
July 10, 2016 at 3:57 am |
[…] Wolfe’s counting house at 109 Front Street burned down during the great fire of 1835, which broke out on December 16. The two-day conflagration destroyed the New York Stock Exchange […]
February 5, 2018 at 8:05 am |
[…] Almost no homes from the 18th century survive in the city of today, thanks in part to fires—like the great fire of 1835. […]
February 5, 2018 at 8:53 am |
[…] Almost no homes from the 18th century survive in the city of today, thanks in part to fires—like the great fire of 1835. […]
December 17, 2018 at 4:57 am |
[…] 1836 he marked the one-year anniversary of the “great fire”—an 1835 blaze that destroyed much of downtown (left). “To the honor of the merchants, and as an evidence of the prosperity […]
July 27, 2020 at 7:04 am |
[…] Gotham, his dramatic scenes of the Great Fire of 1835 and narrative landscapes of the Manhattan waterfront made his name as an exiled European […]