Tuesday, March 21, 2023

one reason a lot of historical objects don't exist anymore, though they were once very common, fire.

1890, Demarest moved their New York City warerooms uptown to more fashionable quarters at an Astor-owned building at 335 Fifth Ave and 33rd St. Three years later, The New York Times reported:

“Many Fine Carriages Burned – Hotel Waldorf’s Guests Watch a Fire in the Demarest Carriage Warehouse.

“The guests of the Hotel Waldorf were aroused from their sleep at 3:30 o’clock yesterday morning by the clattering of fire engines in Fifth Avenue and Thirty-third Street, and when they looked out upon Fifth Avenue they saw the carriage warehouse of A.T. Demarest was in flames. For two hours or more they watched the flames with interest.

“The Demarest building is a five-story brick structure, across the avenue from the Waldorf, at the northeast corner of Thirty-third Street and Fifth Avenue. It is used chiefly as a storage house for carriages. The top floor, where the fire started, was used as a repair shops, and the paints, oils, varnishes, and seasoned wood stored there, furnished fuel for a fire that illuminated Fifth Avenue for many blocks….

“There were over 200 vehicles of all kinds, valued at $150,000, in the building. In the repair shop were twenty fine carriages. Most of these were entirely destroyed and the fire extended to the fourth floor.

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