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| Empty Now . . . The Brewster Water Tank in July of 2013 (chicago.cbslocal.com) |
You may remember
back in the middle of July when the water tank at the top of the Brewster
became airborne on Diversey Parkway, langing in the parking lot below the
building. In the resulting tidal wave a
man and woman getting into their car were injured.
With well over a
hundred of these big tubs still hanging around the city, accidents continue to
happen. Just a couple of months ago, an
18,000 gallon water tank ruptured at the top of a five-story office building at
409 West Huron Street, sending office workers out into the cold at 2:00 In the
afternoon and closing streets.
Today it’s easy to
attribute the problems to the age of the structures, which were originally intended
to provide fire protection, quickly and efficiently. But on this date, April 22, in 1901 a brand
new tank took off, falling through every floor of the five-story Galbraith building
on Madison Street. Fortunately, it was a
Sunday, and, for the most part, the building was empty.
The tank had been
finished about a month earlier and had a capacity of 1,500 gallons. Fully loaded the thing weighed five
tons. You can imagine what would happen
if you lifted an armored car above the roof of the building you owned and then
dropped it. That gives you some idea of
the mean-spirited descent of this bad boy.
The final
inspection by the fire department was due on that Sunday, April 22. The fire department showed up . . . but it
was not to inspect the tank that lay in ruins in the basement of the building.
Poor Richard
O’Brien . . . waiting for customers on a Sunday at his shoe-polishing stand in
the Madison Street entrance of the building.
“He had just dismissed a patron when the falling mass of timber, bricks,
machinery, and steel caught him in its descent and buried him in the
basement.” [Chicago Tribune, April 22, 1901] Rescue workers found the poor guy in the
basement, a piece of glass driven into his scalp, “pinned beneath the debris so
tightly that he could not move.”
And poor Mrs.
Nathan Slotkin, attending to the needs of the birds and animals in her
husband’s pet store. She was knocked
down behind the counter of the store when a heavy showcase feel on top of that
same counter, protecting her from the falling debris. Of the animals in Mr. Slotikin’s shop only
two crows survived. It figures.
The second through
the sixth floors of the building all contained firms that manufactured
clothing. If the tank had fallen on any
other day than Sunday, we might very well be talking about the Madison Street
Water Tank Tragedy of 1901 today.
Dr. Arnold P.
Gilmore, the building’s agent and also a part owner, stated that there was some
flaw in the erection of the tank. “The
sprinkling apparatus was put up three weeks ago by the Manufacturers’ Sprinkler
Company of New York, and the third and final payment was to have been made
tomorrow. Immediately after my
inspection of the wreck I telegraphed an order that the payment be withheld.”
Clearly, Dr.
Gilmore had his priorities in order.
Harry Solomon, who
somehow managed to escape his office, said, “The thing was over before we could
realize our peril. A deluge of water and
wreckage poured on us as we stood gazing into the great gap that had been cut
through the floor not three feet from where we stood . . . I thought there was
not hope for us, but we rushed to the fire-escape to avoid going down with the
floors. We clung there until the arrival
of the Fire department, not daring to reenter the place until the men assured
us it was safe.”
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