Fireman Dies from Injuries Sustained in Fall Following Backdraft at Four Alarm Fire in Sporting Goods Store – Modell’s Sporting Goods – 200 Broadway, Tribeca, Manhattan, New York – July 5, 1941
On July 5, 1941, FDNY Fireman Carl H. Bischoff of Ladder 8 died from injuries he sustained when he fell through a hole from the fourth floor at a four-alarm blaze at the Hegemann Building in the Tribeca area of Lower Manhattan which housed Modell’s Sporting Goods store following a backdraft explosion. Arriving firemen were opening up the front of the burning store when an initial explosion injured ten firemen. When other firemen came to the rescue of their injured comrades, a second, more powerful explosion occurred, tossing more than two dozen firemen across the street. Thirty-five firemen were injured, some with severe burns. In the later stages of the fire, as firefighters started interior operations, Fireman Bischoff fell through a hole on the fourth floor. Bischoff lay in the debris pile on the first floor for three hours before it was noticed that he was missing after he had fallen from the fourth to the first floor. He was removed from the building and pronounced dead. The cause of the fire was unable to be determined. Fire officials believed the fire had smoldered in the locked building for more than two days before being discovered by a passing taxicab driver.
The structure involved in the incident was a six-story with basement and sub-cellar Type III Ordinary construction brick and wood joist mercantile loft building located at 200 Broadway midblock between Fulton and John Streets two blocks south of City Hall Park in the Tribeca area of Lower Manhattan. The first floor was occupied by a sporting goods store and a Liggett’s drug store with large plate glass windows on Side Alpha. The upper floors were unoccupied. The building measured about 50 feet wide and 160 feet long. The roof was flat with several large wired-glass skylights. Two elevators were placed on the Side Bravo wall near the front of the store. The building faced 80-foot-wide Broadway on Side Alpha, a major thoroughfare in Lower Manhattan. Exposure Bravo was a vacant lot. On Exposure Charlie were several similarly constructed mercantile buildings fronting on Fulton Street. On Exposure Delta was a 12-story building of similar construction. The basement and a sub-cellar were equipped with an automatic fire sprinkler system, but the building did not have a fire alarm system. Multiple fire hydrants fed by 12- and 20-inch water mains were available on the block. The nearest fire alarm call box was located one block northeast at Fulton and Nassau Streets.
Note: A mercantile loft-style building is a structure that was originally built for commercial purposes such as warehouses, garment factories and other manufacturing uses. The first floor was usually occupied by a mercantile use while the upper floors contained manufacturing and light industrial uses. They were often built using cast iron structural elements including cast iron columns to support the upper floors and cast iron decorative front facades that provided large arched windows to display merchandise at street level. Built with high ceilings and supported by large wooden beams with cast iron columns, loft buildings provided ample floor space for machinery and materials in manufacturing occupancies, and the display of merchandise in mercantile shops. In recent years, many loft buildings have been repurposed into residential apartments and condominiums. They are usually renovated leaving much of the interior brick walls exposed, and the cast iron columns, cast iron facades, and high ceilings retained for aesthetic purposes.
Manhattan is geographically the smallest and most densely populated of the five boroughs that make up the City of New York. The borough of 22.83 square miles of land area had a population of 1,694,251 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. Manhattan has been described as the cultural, financial, media, and entertainment capital of the world. The Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of “Triangle Below Canal Street”. The “triangle” (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Chambers Street. The neighborhood began as farmland, then was a residential neighborhood in the early 19th century, before becoming a mercantile area centered on produce, dry goods, and textiles. Much of the area featured multi-story loft buildings and waterfront warehouses. After the Second World War, much of the industry and produce markets left Tribeca, moving to other areas of the city. Many of the former loft buildings were taken over by burgeoning artists who turned the lofts into live/work spaces during the early 1970’s after winning approval from the city. Today the area has become a trendy district as actors, models, entrepreneurs, and other celebrities make their homes in the renovated loft buildings. The neighborhood is home to the Tribeca Festival, which was created in response to the September 11 attacks, to reinvigorate the neighborhood and downtown after the destruction caused by the terrorist attacks.
Today the Borough of Manhattan is protected by the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) which consists of 17,321 career firefighters, EMS personnel and support staff that serve a population of about 8 million residents in the city of approximately 321 square miles. The department staffs 254 fire stations within 14 divisions in 53 battalions operating 197 engine companies, 143 ladder companies, 8 squad companies, 5 rescue companies, 450 ambulances, 1 HazMat company, 1 USAR company, 10 wildland units and 3 fireboats. The FDNY is the largest municipal fire department in the United States, and the second largest in the world after the Tokyo Fire Department. Call volume in fiscal year 2023 was more than 1.8 million calls for service including 23,901 structural fire, 12,594 non-structural fires, 233,320 non-fire emergencies, and 1.6 million emergency medical calls including 605,140 life-threatening medical emergencies.
The Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan is protected by fire units from the First Division and the First and Second Battalions:
- Engine 6 – 49 Beekman Street – 0.4 miles from the fire building.
- Engine 7/Tower Ladder 1/ Battalion 1 – 100 Duane Street – 0.4 miles from the fire building.
- Engine 10 & Ladder 10 – 124 Liberty Street – 0.7 miles from the fire building.
- Engine 4/Ladder 15 – 42 South Street – 0.7 miles from the fire building.
- Ladder 8 – 14 North Moore Street – 0.8 miles from the fire building. Note: This firehouse’s exterior has become famous for its appearance in the supernatural comedy franchise Ghostbusters.
On Saturday, July 5, 1941, at 4:40 a.m., a fire was discovered by a passing taxicab driver in the Modell’s Sporting Goods store at 200 Broadway in the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. Box 71 was transmitted sending fire units from around the area to the scene. Arriving firemen found an advanced fire in the interior of the store with thick smoke puffing from the front door of the six-story building. Flames spiraled up an air shaft, mushroomed on the top floor and gnawed through the roof. As members were forcing open the locked building while stretching lines to the front door and venting the roof, an explosion occurred. Heavy flames and smoke blew out the front plate glass windows sending merchandise flying out into the street. The two companies of firemen who were working the lines in the doorway were flattened and stunned. As firefighters went to the aid of their fallen comrades, a second, and more violent explosion occurred, this time shooting blistering tongues of flame out the front door and windows, scorching two firefighters who were setting up Water Tower 1 in the middle of Broadway. The force of the blast hurled 23 men across the street into another building, severely injuring many of them. Others were thrown against their apparatus. Heavy steel shutters were ripped from the first and second floor windows.
Deputy Chief James Hanley, himself burned on the face, sent in the second and third alarms in quick succession and at 4:53 a.m., a fourth alarm was transmitted. Fire Chief Patrick Walsh took command of the fire after Deputy Chief Hanley was put out of action by his injuries. More than 31 pieces of fire apparatus converged on the scene.
Spectators said that the flames at one time rose as high as a nearby 22-story building. They scorched the side of the adjacent 12-story building at 198 Broadway that was owned by Elias H. Cohen. A vacant lot adjoined the fire building on the uptown side of the block. Firemen fought the blaze from ladders and from the windows of 198 Broadway.
In the later stages of the fire, as firefighters started interior operations, Fireman Carl Bischoff of Ladder 8, which responded on the third alarm, was killed when he fell through a hole on the fourth floor. Bischoff lay in the debris pile on the first floor for three hours before it was noticed that he was missing after he had fallen from the fourth floor to the first. He was removed from the building and pronounced dead.
Fire department doctors said the cause of death for Fireman Bischoff was asphyxiation, smoke poisoning, and multiple injuries. More than 35 other fire personnel were injured in the backdraft explosions and eight were treated at Downtown and Beekman Hospitals. The most seriously burned, Fireman Thomas Donovan of Engine 6, was later transferred to the Firemen’s Ward at Bellevue Hospital.
The backdrafts were of such explosive force that it was first believed they may have been caused by a bomb and the Police Bomb Squad was called. After an investigation, Fire Marshal Thomas P. Brophy said no evidence of explosives or of suspicious origin of the fire had been found. Fire officials said the building had been closed since the previous Thursday night for the long Fourth of July holiday weekend. They believed that the fire had started on Thursday night or early Friday morning and started to eat its way up through the building generating tremendous heat. As firemen broke down a door to reach the blaze, the unleashed smoke and heat burst forth from the front of the building in a backdraft condition. The cause of the fire was unable to be determined. Henry Modell, owner of the sporting goods store, said the value of the stock would likely exceed $100,000, but was covered by insurance. He said no one had been in the store, to his knowledge, after it was locked at 8 p.m. Thursday, and that he had no theory as to how the fire might have started.
Fireman First Grade Carl H. Bischoff, age 51, was a 14-year veteran of the FDNY having been appointed on April 30, 1923, and was attached to Ladder 8 at 14 North Moore Street. Bischoff was a former police officer and First World War veteran. He was survived by his wife, Catherine, and his mother, Mrs. Sarah Bischoff; and his four brothers, John, Oscar, George, and Clarence and his sister, Frances Gettle.
A deputy chief’s funeral with full departmental honors was held to honor the fallen firefighter at Calvary Episcopal Church in Brooklyn. An escort of 250 firemen including the Fire Department band escorted the coach bearing the casket as hundreds of firemen saluted the procession. Fire Commissioner Patrick Walsh, Deputy Commissioner Harry M. Archer, Assistant Fire Chief John J. McCarthy, Deputy Chiefs James Quinn, George Carlen and Fred Buttonscheo attended the services. Captain Thomas Newman and Lieutenant John Scudelloni represented Ladder 8. Bischoff was interred at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Fireman Carl H. Bischoff has been honored at the New York Firemen’s Memorial on Riverside Drive at 100th Street in Manhattan, New York. The memorial honors the members of the NYFD and the FDNY who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty. Built in 1913 on a hillside facing the Hudson River, the memorial comprises a grand staircase, a balustraded plaza, a fountain basin, and the central monument. Made of Knoxville marble, the monument is a sarcophagus-like structure with a massive bronze bas-relief of horses drawing an engine to a fire. To the south and north are allegorical sculpture groups representing “Duty” and “Sacrifice.”
The name of Fireman Carl H. Bischoff has been inscribed at the New York State Fallen Firefighters Memorial on the grounds of the New York State Capitol in Albany. The memorial features a 54-foot by 15-foot gray granite wall with the names of New York State fallen firefighters permanently etched into the stone. In front of the wall stands a 10-foot-high dark bronze sculpture of two firefighters rescuing an injured colleague created by New York sculptor Robert Eccleston. The sculpture rests on a paved plaza with charcoal and red bricks forming a Maltese Cross. As of October 2024, there are 2,692 names on the wall. The earliest name on the wall is from the year 1811.
The site of the mercantile building is now occupied by an upscale shopping mall. There is no memorial marker at the site.
Commentary:
Legacy Type III Ordinary construction mercantile buildings are noted for often having combustible void spaces, particularly in the void created when a dropped ceiling has been installed during renovations. This may result in several layers of combustible void spaces over the heads of unsuspecting firefighters. During a fire, this hidden combustible space can accumulate substantial amounts of smoke, heat and unburned products of combustion that can suddenly ignite explosively. Firefighters operating along the front façade wall of such a structure may be in the direct path of the explosion and can be tossed into street or struck by building components as they are hurled from the structure with great force.
Retired FDNY Deputy Chief Vincent Dunn has likened entry into a mercantile building that has been closed up and burning for an extended period of time as entering into the barrel of a shotgun. Firefighters must be trained to recognize the warning signs of backdraft. These indicators may include a well-sealed building; little or no visible flame; black smoke becoming dense, greyish yellow without visible flames; smoke-stained windows with visible cracking and/or rattling; smoke leaving the building in puffs and then being drawn back in; and the sudden rapid movement of air and smoke inward when an opening in the building is made. Backdraft prevention includes vertical ventilation to relieve the pressure of the accumulated gases harmlessly into the atmosphere and prevent an explosive ignition as firefighters open up the building for entry.
We have attached photos from the incident. We have also attached a detail from a Sanborn fire insurance map that shows the configuration of the fire building and the surrounding exposures.
We have also attached a video of a backdraft occurring in a row of stores in Queens, New York in 2018 that injured seven firefighters and at least five other civilians:
And we have also included an article from the Firehouse Tribune that discusses the warning signs of backdraft and how to prevent it: http://www.thefirehousetribune.com/blog/2015/9/25/understand-a-backdraft#:~:text=With%20this%20being%20said%20there%20are%20certain%20warning,and%20smoke%20inward%20when%20an%20opening%20is%20made
Thanks to multiple media sources for the content of this article.
Remember the service of Firemen Carl H. Bischoff by touring a legacy mercantile building in your local response district and discussing the warning signs of backdraft with your crew members today.
Remember Fallen Brothers
Get Out There And Know Your Local!!!
Photo of firefighters battling the flames with master streams after the two backdrafts had occurred.
Note: A mercantile loft-style building is a structure that was originally built for commercial purposes such as warehouses, garment factories and other manufacturing uses. The first floor was usually occupied by a mercantile use while the upper floors contained manufacturing and light industrial uses. They were often built using cast iron structural elements including cast iron columns to support the upper floors and cast iron decorative front facades that provided large arched windows to display merchandise at street level. Built with high ceilings and supported by large wooden beams with cast iron columns, loft buildings provided ample floor space for machinery and materials in manufacturing occupancies, and the display of merchandise in mercantile shops. In recent years, many loft buildings have been repurposed into residential apartments and condominiums. They are usually renovated leaving much of the interior brick walls exposed, and the cast iron columns, cast iron facades, and high ceilings retained for aesthetic purposes.
Detail from the Sanborn fire insurance map of the area showing the configuration of the fire building (circled in red) and the surrounding exposures. Note that the Evening Post building on Side Bravo had been torn down and was a vacant lot at the time of the fire in 1941.
Photo: An injured fireman is treated at Downtown Hospital.
