March 17, 1899: The Windsor Hotel Fire

March 17, 1899: A fire breaks out at the Windsor Hotel in New York City. It kills 86 people.

The Windsor opened in 1873, at 575 5th Avenue, at East 47th Street, in what would now be considered Midtown Manhattan. It was advertised as "the most comfortable and homelike hotel in New York."

On March 17, 1899, as the hotel was located on 5th Avenue, guests gathered to watch the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Supposedly, the fire started when someone threw an unextinguished match out of a 2nd-floor window, and the wind blew it against the lace curtains.

Dora Duncan, leading a dance class in the hotel at the time, managed to get her students, including her daughter, Isadora Duncan, to safety. Abner McKinley, a lawyer and the brother of President William McKinley, was outside when the alarm was raised. He dashed in and rescued his wife and their handicapped daughter.

Firemen, some of them still in their dress uniforms from the parade, made heroic rescues, but they were hampered by the crowds. The fire moved too fast for them to reach every window with ladders, and water pressure was inadequate.

President McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Abner McKinley did not long outlive his brother, as he developed Bright's disease, a kidney disorder that had already claimed the life of a former President, Chester Arthur; and Alice Roosevelt, the 1st wife of President McKinley's 2nd Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt. It would later kill the 1st wife of another President, Ellen Wilson, wife of Woodrow Wilson. Today, it is still not curable, but is treatable with antibiotics.

A high-rise apartment building is now on the site. There is no historical marker for the tragedy.

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March 17, 1899 was a Friday. There were no scores on this historic day: Baseball was in Spring Training, football was in the off-season, basketball barely existed, and the Stanley Cup had been awarded to the Montreal Victorias 3 days earlier.