Believe what you will about the Gods, karma, the universe, whatever! There are some rules that even atheists should follow.
Never call your boat “unsinkable”.
Don’t call your machine gun “peace-producing”.
And DO NOT, for the love of Shakespeare, describe your playhouse as “absolutely fireproof”.
It seems that whenever arrogance takes precedence over public safety, the gods have something to say about this hubris. This episode is as horrific as you might guess, but it does make us wonder just how horrible things have to get before we make change.
When the doors of the Iroquois Theater opened in 1903, it was said to be the most beautiful in all of Chicago. A masterpiece adorned with mahogany and glass doors, marble and gold pillars, and a grand central staircase. Boasting a seating capacity of 1,600 people on three levels, the Iroquois promised a night of enchantment to all. Better still, it was declared in playbills and advertising to be “absolutely fireproof”.
People back then were justifiably worried about theatre fires so the architect studied every previous theatre disaster to avoid anything happening at the Iroquois. His solution and therefore justification for making such a confident (some might say arrogant) claim was a state-of-the-art asbestos curtain. If there was a fire, the stagehands would simply lower it down on stage. And as if that wasn’t enough, they also had handy Killfyre tubes (think of a poster tube with bicarb soda in it) as if they’d even be needed.
But opposition to this hubris came in the form of the editor of Fireproof Magazine. Despite its claims, the Iroquois was far from fireproof. Lack of proper exits, exposed reinforcement, and inadequate firefighting equipment became glaring issues. There were also no sprinklers, alarms, telephones or water connections and only one common (albeit opulent) stairway, despite Chicago fire ordinances that required separate stairways and exits for each balcony.
Caution to the wind, the fateful day arrived for the matinee performance of "Mr. Blue Beard." The audience, mostly women and children, excitedly filled every seat and occupied standing room everywhere else. As the show entered its second act, a spark from a stage light ignited drapery high above the stage. Stagehands whipped out their trusty Killfyre tubes only to find they couldn’t toss the powder high enough. Next up, the fail-safe asbestos curtain… snagged on the way down. And then it very quickly became apparent that the fire could not be contained.
Panic ensued and audience members bolted from their seats toward whatever exit they could find. But you’d need the gods on your side to find an exit in the Iroquois Theater. The forward-thinking architect deliberately hid them, citing a more pleasing aesthetic. Once eventually found, the scorched patrons were greeted with a puzzling DaVinci-code-style mechanism to unlock the doors.
Worse still, the doors opened inward and some were even fake, painted-on doors. There was one upper-level fire escape, but it lacked an exterior ladder down to the ground. Two large flues on the rooftop where the smoke and flame could have vented out were boarded shut.
It was as if Lucifer himself designed the Iroquois. An estimated 575 people died that day and at least thirty more over the following weeks. As word of the staggering death toll spread, the city was overcome by collective mourning followed by a swift closing of all playhouses and implementation of stricter fire safety measures (enter that green glowing exit sign we’ve all seen everywhere).
But was anyone held responsible for this horrifying event?
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[00:00:00] Will: Don't call your boat unsinkable. Don't call your machine gun. You know, peace producing and finally, you don't call your theatre Absolutely fireproof. The owners declared, like, and I've got one here in a playbill. Yeah. The theatre was absolutely fireproof. Oh, so here is the playbill for the play, Mr. Bluebeard.
[00:00:26] Rod: Now look, and I don't want to interrupt or. Get ahead of things. I got an inkling.
[00:00:31] Will: I don't wanna spoil for you. It wasn't, have you ever been sitting in a movie theatre and you know, waiting for the movie to start or whatever, and you look around and there's that little glowing green light that says Exit. Yeah.
[00:00:51] Rod: Not only have I looked around as I walk into a room, obviously look for all exits and entrances, and then when I sit down, I look for my closest one,
[00:00:58] Will: but have you ever wondered about the origin story of that glowing green exit light?
[00:01:04] Rod: I absolutely have not. I thought you were gonna say, have you worried about the origin story of exiting?
[00:01:09] Will: So, I don't really believe in the Greek gods. They're among my favourites.
[00:01:14] Rod: You don't really, or you just don't.
[00:01:16] Will: No I'm on the fence.
[00:01:17] Rod: Come on. You seen Zues played by rusty crow?
[00:01:20] Will: I'm on the fence.
[00:01:21] Rod: Good eye. I'm Zeus.
[00:01:22] Will: But there are some rules that even atheists should follow because if you don't, it's it's just gonna piss them off. Don't eat fire. Not that one. No. It's the hubris. The hubris. Oh, Greek gods don't like it. I don't think the other gods like it as well. I don't think any gods love a bit of hubris.
[00:01:40] Rod: You know what happens if you get called hubris? Like hubris grant, you end up having sex with a prostitute and busted and everyone hates you for two minutes. It's 'cause his name's hubris.
[00:01:49] Will: I don't think that happens.
[00:01:50] Rod: That's how it works.
[00:01:50] Will: I don't think that, but yeah, you know, don't call your boat unsinkable. Oh don't call your machine gun, you know, peace producing. And finally, don't call your theatre absolutely fireproof. Welcome to the wholesome show. And this here you have a choice.
[00:02:20] Rod: I like fisting better. So the podcast that shakes its fist at the whole Greek pantheon.
[00:02:26] Will: There you go. You are shaking your fist. So I gave Rod the choice. He could've been shaking his fist at the Greek pantheon.
[00:02:32] Rod: I could've been cowering before them.
[00:02:33] Will: I didn't think you wanted to cower.
[00:02:34] Rod: Oh, cower before no, God.
[00:02:36] Will: The wholesome show is me, will grant
[00:02:38] Rod: and me fisting rod Lamberts in the sense of shaking it. Shaking your fist. Shaking it.
[00:02:43] Will: What is your hubris before the Greek gods?
[00:02:46] Rod: My hubris. I don't think you're that good. I looked them in the eye eyes. Gods, whatever they have. Yeah, you're shit. Gods one of 'em. Probably is a God of poo.
[00:02:54] Will: Now, just a quick warning on this one. As you can probably guess, this story involves, Fairly horrific scenes. If that's not your, if that's not your thing,
[00:03:04] Rod: now this is a first, oh, by the way.
[00:03:06] Will: But it does make me wonder, you know, why does it take something being super, super bad before we take action? Why don't we take action when it's just bit bad? Because go, because,
[00:03:15] Rod: nah. How many people are complaining and or dying? Not enough.
[00:03:19] Will: The builders of the Iroquois theatre on 24 to 28 west Randolph Street, Chicago chose the location specifically to attract women. They put it near a shopping district that was patrolled by police officers. So the theory was at the time that there was safe shopping and unsafe shopping.
[00:03:38] Rod: What year are we, how long ago were you?
[00:03:39] Will: 1903. So 120 years ago. So yeah, there were districts that women wouldn't go shopping in. Let's put the theatre there because we wanna aim to women and children in our in our theatre business. Makes sense. There was some delays building it, you know, there were some labor disputes, there was some the architect couldn't get his plans drawn on time, but eventually when the Iroquois theatre opened on November 23rd, 1903, it was declared a triumph.
[00:04:06] Chicago was booming at the time. Yeah. And they wanted to have, you know, Fancy ass architecture that was the envy of the rest of the country. And I don't know if it was the best theatre, but it was certainly a pretty one.
[00:04:16] Rod: And we're banging up against Art Deco nearly. I love Art Deco. I love it.
[00:04:19] Will: Yeah. It's what did I find? Mahogany and glass doors, marble and gold pillars, ornamental fixtures.
[00:04:27] Rod: I'm gonna start licking things.
[00:04:28] Will: It had a, you know, grand central staircase and people were saying most beautiful in Chicago and perhaps the rival of any in the rest of America. One guy competent judges state that few theatres in America can rival its architectural perfections
[00:04:42] Rod: competent judges state. Many people are telling me. Yeah. A lot of people say
[00:04:46] Will: look, that's true. That's true. So yeah. Grand Central Staircase and it had seating capacity. I think this was nor normal size, big theatre. Yep. Like it's a full-size, big theatre. 1600 people. There was like 700 seats in the foyer level. 400 seats in the balcony level, 500 seats in the gallery. And then they cram in people in what we call the standing tickets. So there's, yeah. No, they weren't seats. They were they could have like 500 people crammed in for
[00:05:15] Rod: So 1903 mosh pit for a play.
[00:05:17] Will: Yeah.
[00:05:18] Rod: But not at the front.
[00:05:19] Will: Not at the front. No. They're behind the seats. You gotta be behind.
[00:05:21] Rod: Of course. Otherwise you'd block the paying punters. Yeah. Okay.
[00:05:25] Will: And I said before there was that grand staircase grand Central Staircase. Part of this was because the architects thought we want everyone to see who was there, see and be seen regardless of the price he paid. So everyone goes through the same central staircase. So you can see, oh there's Jerry and there's Liz, and there's,
[00:05:44] Rod: so the people in the fancy seats can go, ah, look at you standards.
[00:05:48] Will: Oh. Anyway, given how worried everyone was Yeah. At the time about theatre fires, they had absolutely happened before. There was one, I think in 1873, you know, like, 30 years before in New York there was probably a lot of other smaller ones. Everyone was worried. And so the architects were like, alright, well I'm gonna study all the previous theatre disasters and find out what will prevent fire.
[00:06:10] Rod: Are you gonna talk me through? All the previous theatre disasters. I'm ready.
[00:06:13] Will: I'm not. I'm not. I'm done. I'm ready. I'm focusing on this one. Okay. And the two solutions they came up with. Yeah. One was an asbestos curtain. So this was a drop curtain that would go at the front of the stage if there was a fire on stage. So if the set catches fire somehow you kill the actors. Yeah. You only kill the actors. You trap the actors. You drop a big asbestos curtain. Yeah. In between the actors and the audience.
[00:06:41] Rod: And this is a time where they're still using lamp lights that are flames or,
[00:06:45] Will: well, basically they're not flames. Like this is early electricity.
[00:06:48] Rod: Oh. Which is the safest electricity.
[00:06:51] Will: Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Basically it's naked tungsten with a lot of current going through it.
[00:06:56] Rod: So now what does it get? I don't know how hot you got.
[00:06:59] Will: Oh, it's fricking little pools of lava on the stage all over the place. Yeah. Okay. You can imagine, you know, these actors are cooking under these lights and yeah. So they would, they, this was asbestos curtain super innovation at the time. Sure. And asbestos curtain. Apparently these were really beautiful. I think this was one of the first ones. The idea of curtains between the actors and the audience had happened before. I think the earliest might've been in 1790 for Fire. Right. Like to make it safe. A dropdown curtain. Originally they were made of like steel or iron, like, like.
[00:07:30] Rod: It's a curtain that's a door, like a wall.
[00:07:32] Will: Do you know what, do you know that's where the word iron curtain came from. Like, you know, Churchill is like the Iron Curtain has yeah.
[00:07:37] Rod: Descended across Europe.
[00:07:38] Will: Yeah. It's an iron curtain between the actors and the audience to try and stop a fire, keep the actors on fire, and keep the audience
[00:07:43] Rod: not to keep communism in. Although actors tend to be communist is a fair call. Okay, so the ideas have been around for a while, but basically it's a metal, a guillotine. I don't want you to burn it to death so I'm gonna chop you in half.
[00:07:55] Will: Yeah. And now they've made up, made one, made out of asbestos and apparently they were beautiful. Like they'd paint them with scenery or something like that. And apparently they could look really shimmery and nice. Like it was a really elaborate thing. They also had some fire extinguishers that I'll come to, I'll come to in a bit.
[00:08:14] Rod: That's the name of a person, isn't it? This is Nevil, we're gonna roll 'em around on it.
[00:08:19] Will: So, so with this asbestos curtain and fire extinguisher combo. They went full Greek tragedy. The owners declared, like, and I've got one here in a playbill. Yeah. The theatre was absolutely fireproof. So here is the playbill for the play, Mr. Bluebeard.
[00:08:35] Rod: Now look, and I don't want to interrupt or get ahead of things. I got an inkling.
[00:08:40] Will: I don't wanna spoil for you.
[00:08:42] Rod: It wasn't
[00:08:44] Will: you're really asking for the gods to come.
[00:08:47] Rod: Yeah. You got the investment advice. Yeah. I've got a sure thing for you. Oh, fuck it.
[00:08:50] Will: So yeah, the Gods came. But not straight away with the Roth of Zeus. They sent a lowly messenger first. Fireproof magazine, so
[00:09:02] Rod: I love that one. I, you know, that's the world's longest running magazine about fireproofing.
[00:09:08] Will: I am wild that there is a magazine called Fireproof Magazine. If you went down to these shops I looked, but I couldn't find any at the moment.
[00:09:14] Rod: I'll take a hustler, A big jugs, a butt stuff. Fireproof Magazine. Something to do with donkeys. That, that was the old way I'm told people would buy their pornographies.
[00:09:26] Will: I'm sure it is.
[00:09:26] Rod: It was always between like the Woman's Weekly for my mother and the Racing Guide for my father at Penthouse Magazine with all the stories. That's how you buy fireproof.
[00:09:35] Will: So yeah, the editor from Fireproof Magazine went on down. he must've been, you're calling your place fireproof without my warrant.
[00:09:41] Rod: And by magazine do you mean a pamphlet he'd run off in his basement as he ran around being indignant.
[00:09:48] Will: Maybe it was huge. Maybe it was huge. And he's like, no way. No way is this fireproof. Like it's not even up to current code of the time, let alone what we would consider safe. You noted the absence of an intake or stage draft shaft, so something that would, yeah, a hole. Exposed reinforcement. So wood of one of the arches, you know, that says wood all over the place,
[00:10:09] Rod: as in it does have it and that's bad, or it doesn't have enough of it.
[00:10:11] Will: Bad. Yeah. Wood trim on everything and the inadequate provision of exits.
[00:10:15] Rod: That's mahogany though.
[00:10:16] Will: That's true.
[00:10:17] Rod: Mahogany doesn't burn.
[00:10:19] Will: Chicago Fire Department captain also went down. I assume big reader of Fireproof Magazine wants to check it out for himself.
[00:10:25] Rod: No. A long longtime reader, first time contributor, he went down there and said, no. Now I wanna go on the record.
[00:10:29] Will: And it's weird, the fire department captain found different things to Fireproof Magazine. I would've thought they would, but yeah. These are all bad. These are all bad.
[00:10:36] Rod: Wouldn't you talk to each other first?
[00:10:37] Will: No. No sprinklers. No alarms. No telephones, no water connections. One common stairway. Again. But they did have, and this was what the the theatre owners thought, no, we got it. We got it in hand is the onsite firefighting equipment was six kilfyre extinguishers. Now I love, when I was reading about these, I was just like, It's like a postal tube. You know, when you're sending like a map through the, it's like two inches wide by 24 inches long.
[00:11:08] So in our money it's like five centimeters by 60 centimeters. Something like that. Yeah. A tube. And it's full of baking soda. And what you would do is you'd pop the top off the tube and you'd forcibly hurl the baking soda onto the fire.
[00:11:20] Rod: Perfect. Now I feel safe. I don't need water exit sprinklers to not be surrounded by wood air shaft doors 'cause I have six tubes of baking soda.
[00:11:30] Will: With, remember lights that are basically lava from the sun, bits of the sun sitting there on the stage.
[00:11:35] Rod: We have six tubes of baking soda. And what was it, 1700 people? 1600?
[00:11:40] Will: Well, no, it was 1600 in the seats, plus 500 in the standing area, which, you know, when you think about it, the standing area is not an area. No. So, yeah.
[00:11:49] Rod: Jesus Christ, no connected water. That, come on. Come on. That's flipping people off. So, and we're fireproof. Got any connected water? No. Fuck you we're fireproof.
[00:11:58] Will: Not fireproof. Not fireproof.
[00:11:59] Rod: Not even fireproof adjacent. Not even thinking about fire. Also enough
[00:12:05] Will: it's just the lying. Just the lie and just on these fire extinguishers. So each one of them was like three pounds worth of baking soda, or one and a half kilos. So it's like a, it's like a packet of flour basically. And there's six of them. Six of them for the whole theatre. And that's it.
[00:12:21] Rod: And so your trick is get in early. Look, if you're just gonna be totally ridiculous, you might as well claim fireproof as well. 'cause what have you got for fireproofing? No, nothing. So what?
[00:12:31] Will: Asbestos curtain man.
[00:12:32] Rod: So they did have that?
[00:12:34] Will: They did have that. The theatre was beautiful, of course, but despite its beauty the first few weeks weren't exactly a cracker. It might've been, there was labor unrest in Chicago at the time. Maybe it was a super chilly winter whatever it was. But between November 23 and when it opened and just after Christmas it had a tendencies, it had matinee, but nothing really took off.
[00:12:54] But Wednesday, December 30th things were looking up. They had finally got a sellout. They'd sold every seat and whatever you call a standing room ticket for the afternoon matinee of the popular musical Mr. Blue Beard. So we're,
[00:13:09] Rod: I'm gonna assume you're telling me this, the fact that this is the packed Night, it's just a coincidence, has nothing to do with the fire broke out, so carry on.
[00:13:15] Will: No. After everyone has left.
[00:13:17] Rod: Yeah, exactly. I feel great. I have no concern.
[00:13:19] Will: So there's something like 2100 to 2200 people in there.
[00:13:22] Rod: Oh God.
[00:13:22] Will: And as I said, standing room so crowded that some people are sitting in the aisles. And of course, because it was a matinee, which improves everything
[00:13:31] Rod: children.
[00:13:32] Will: Yes. Yay. Yeah. One of the lead actors who later turned out to be, it's hard to tell some people described him as a hero. I think he was, I think he was good. But some of the things he did have been described as weird.
[00:13:42] Rod: Really a lead actor being weird?
[00:13:45] Will: No. It's hard to tell. He wrote that it struck much later he wrote his memoirs. It struck him when he looked out over the crowd during the first act that he'd never before seen so many women and children in the audience. Even the gallery was full of mothers and children.
[00:14:00] Rod: Great. It's good to know they're getting out. Then everyone went home
[00:14:03] Will: as the show began it's second act at 3:15 a spark from a stage light ignited nearby drapery high above the stage. And there's a, there's some articles of the time. They put out a little picture showing where it was.
[00:14:15] So there's the actors on the stage looking super comfortable. I don't know how they got them to do this 'cause stand still. They must have got a photo of them on stage and that x is where it happened. Stage hands ran on, of course they've got the kill fire. They got the tubes of kill fire
[00:14:28] Rod: quick. Get the flour. Ready you go.
[00:14:31] Will: But apparently it was too high. So the baking soda
[00:14:35] Rod: you get on my shoulders, get on my shoulders. Well, no, if you get a handful of flour and throw it really hard, it goes way further. Yes. Well, what you do is you moisten it a bit to get into a lump, and then you can throw it a lot further.
[00:14:46] Will: That would be it. Quick get, but there's no water. No water. No water in the building. If you've only got the dry flour, no. See how far you can throw the dry? Yeah. As you can guess, the baking soda fell uselessly to the ground. Not putting out the fire. The fire climbed up the curtain and began to catch the hundreds of pounds of scenery that hung up in the rafters,
[00:15:03] Rod: which is of course all made outta fire retardant material, no problem. Paper?
[00:15:08] Will: I dunno. Literally petrol, I assume all the scenery is my, like, it's probably petrol and arsenic or something like that. In these days.
[00:15:15] Rod: Yeah. Yeah. Like those, one of those logs are all around playgrounds, copper's logs, and they say they're great and they never decay. Never burn one ever.
[00:15:22] Will: No. Exactly. Exactly. Don't burn kids' playgrounds either.
[00:15:26] Rod: It's friday night, what am I gonna do now?
[00:15:29] Will: Kids' playground. I just don't like children having fun.
[00:15:31] Rod: Burn the fucking thing at night. I'm not a monster.
[00:15:35] Will: Not everyone knew what was going on at first. No. And the pro performers kept going. Maybe they thought the audience thought it was a special effect. Maybe the performers didn't actually realize at first.
[00:15:44] Rod: Really. That had about, I'm gonna say what, 20 people on the stage you get into your erasm
[00:15:48] Will: Maybe thought it was that one of the special effects many of the people in the audience sat mesmerized, particularly children who are sitting down the front. He's the lead actor. Eddie Foy, one of the lead actors attempted to calm the increasingly agitated audience. He ordered the orchestra, orchestra to continue playing as stage hands made futile attempts to lower the asbestos fire curtain.
[00:16:10] Rod: Oh, like the Titanic?
[00:16:11] Will: Yeah. But others have said he actually what he was doing is actually trying to stop a panic. Like I, I think the orchestra's still playing. I'm not sure. But later on he does seem to have been in the middle trying to stop a panic 'cause
[00:16:25] Rod: well, that no panics are good 'cause you move faster. I gotta be honest. I don't understand. And also, you know what I understand the least when people are freaked out. Yelling. I don't understand yelling.
[00:16:35] Will: You know, I think we can say that from the comfort of not being there, but my God, you just,
[00:16:40] Rod: oh, I understand freaking out. Like I understand you freaking out.
[00:16:42] Will: Think about you freaking in these next moments and what's gonna happen.
[00:16:44] Rod: No, freaking out, I get you pushing over old people and children to get, keep yourself alive, but to be screaming the whole time. I don't understand. Oh my God. A fire. Then you do something as opposed to, oh my God, there's a fire. Ah. What's it buying you after that? I don't under, I really kind of go, why do you keep yelling? Oh my God. Why do you keep yelling? Whatcha getting out of it? do the rest. Do the rest. Don't keep yelling.
[00:17:10] Will: Jesus Christ. You're such a dad. Sometimes
[00:17:11] Rod: I know.
[00:17:12] Will: Why does everyone yelling? Just be quiet.
[00:17:14] Rod: Panic in silence you idiot.
[00:17:18] Will: They tried to lower the asbestos curtain, the magic state of the art asbestos curtain.
[00:17:22] Rod: The mechanism not as magic?
[00:17:24] Will: It got stuck halfway. It just got snagged. It just got snagged.
[00:17:28] Rod: And they of course tested that under all conditions.
[00:17:31] Will: Well, well, it's really interesting actually, 'cause I did a bunch of research on these curtains. Yeah. Fireproof curtains and Yeah. And asbestos curtains. Yeah. Whatever they were. They actually do test them regularly and now, and well, well, well, I'm not sure about now, but in, they were used throughout the 20th century and a lot of places around the world would do them up and down before every show to demonstrate, hey, we've got this fire curtain.
[00:17:54] Rod: Don't worry, only actors will die.
[00:17:56] Will: Anyway, curtain snagged and soon after that the lighting goes out. Cool. And it became very apparent very quickly that the fire was not gonna get contained. Audience members bolted from their seats to what what few exit doors they could find but but, Thanks. Fucking architect. Most of them were obscured. What? Deliberately by the architect. 'cause he didn't like the look of them. They ruined the look of the room. Most of them were hidden behind curtains.
[00:18:29] Worse. When they could find them, they encountered a weird locking mechanism. Of course, you would like it's the sort of locking mechanism that you see on the back of a semitrailer. Like it's got a sort of latch up foot. Yeah. That one that not many people knew how to use.
[00:18:43] Rod: So that was to stop people from sneaking in?
[00:18:46] Will: Yeah. They were really worried about people sneaking in through those doors, but they made it really hard for people to get out. Worse, the doors opened. Inwood, of course, they did. Does that makes sense? It makes it's zero thinking. It is zero thinking. Worse. There was also some fake painted on doors, so bam. Just remember this place is being billed as absolutely fireproof
[00:19:11] Rod: fake doors. This will be funny.
[00:19:13] Will: Oh my God. I, there was also a series of like metal accordion gates on the stairs, like, to stop the people in the top right top balcony seats, gallery sneaking down to the more expensive seats down low. So they were sort of literally
[00:19:27] Rod: so, and you locked them when the performance starts, obviously.
[00:19:30] Will: So the terrified patrons were funneling through basically a big set of stairs and everyone, everyone is panicked to get out.
[00:19:37] Rod: So it's a lock you in. You're gonna die oven. Jesus Christ.
[00:19:41] Will: So watching from the stage Foy, that lead actor, he said, The upper levels resembled a mad animal like stampede. Their screams, groans and snails. The scuffle of thousands of feet and bodies grinding against bodies merging into a crescendo half whale, half raw, half whale.
[00:19:57] Rod: This is horrible. This is horrible.
[00:19:59] Will: So the cast members realize everyone's in danger. So they're like, okay, there's a backstage door that we can get out there. But for those of you fans of late eighties, not early nineties movies, yes.
[00:20:11] They opened the door and a blast of cold air came through, sending a back draft. Boom. Basically explode. Cool, cool. Through the middle of the theatre. Cool. Cool. Ball of flame. Pushed through the whole theatre. The vents above the stage that were meant to vent any excess heat. Like a chimney sort thing sucked air in.
[00:20:31] No. They've been nailed shut. Cool. Because 'cause why not? What's drafting? And they went under the asbestos curtain that was stuck halfway up, streaking towards the events behind the dress circle and gallery. 15 meters away.
[00:20:42] Rod: Nailed shut.
[00:20:44] Will: Yeah. They were nailed shut. Yeah. Yeah. So many of the bits here, like they don't take rocket science to work out. Like it's just how callous do you have to be?
[00:20:54] Rod: No. How do you, how well you're back to hubris. No, this place will not burn
[00:20:58] Will: because we've got an asbestos curtain and six bottles of bicarb.
[00:21:01] Rod: Yeah, it'll be fine.
[00:21:02] Will: Like that's not enough for me.
[00:21:04] Rod: So stop mucking around. Stop worrying about it. You idiot.
[00:21:06] Will: Seriously. And we've got painted on exit doors.
[00:21:08] Rod: Yeah. But in times of emergency, they come to life. Wow.
[00:21:13] Will: So the hot exploding gases flew through over the heads of the, those in the orchestra seats and incinerated everything, flammable in the gallery, in the dress circles, including patrons still chapped in those areas.
[00:21:24] Rod: So it would've been quick. In theory.
[00:21:26] Will: It probably was the whole thing. The whole thing was probably 15 minutes.
[00:21:30] Rod: No, that's not quick when you're burning to death. I meant for those people who briefly insinuated. Yeah. I think burning death for 15 minutes might as well be a million years.
[00:21:39] Will: God. Oh God. But the Backdraft was actually slightly positive in the sense that it blew at least one of the real exit doors open. Yay. So finally there's a way out. Cool. Two more, two more people opened doors. There was a bar owner who had he was a formal baseball player with the Chicago Cults.
[00:21:55] Rod: He had his waiters friend. Not, and he jimmy it open.
[00:21:57] Will: I think so, actually. Well, there, there is a tool guy coming up. He defied an usher and he was able to open the door because his icebox at home had the same lock on it. Okay. Which is a very elaborate lock for your fridge. And another baseball player from the Boston Bean eaters. He forced his horse his way out. So I think there were three doors open. So a bunch of people did. Okay. So we've managed to get out the doors. Okay. Meanwhile, a few upstairs managed to find an upper level fire escape, only to realize it didn't have a ladder.
[00:22:27] Rod: No, I was gonna say. So, so jumped to your death.
[00:22:29] Will: Yeah. People in the building across, remember this is like three 15 in the afternoon. They're like, oh, quick get some planks and make a, like a little bridge thing. What could go wrong? Well, the first two people after that, a bunch of people managed to escape, but yes, a few fell to their deaths on the little bridge thing they made. A bunch of performers escaped through the coal hatch, through windows and dressing rooms. And a bunch were at another stage door out the back. And they saw, you know, they, they would, it was it was another one of these open inwards doors and they were jammed up against it.
[00:23:01] And a passing railroad agents saw the crowd pressing against the doors and unfastened the hinges from the outside using tools he normally carried with him. Allowing the actors in stage hands to escape railroad agent tools. He's got the, yeah, I dunno, it's like the waiters friend or something like
[00:23:15] Rod: this railroad's loose. I'll get out my railroad tightener and fix it.
[00:23:18] Will: Exactly. So it can do railroad tightening or hinge loosening. So well, well done. It might just be a crowbar. You maybe just, he's a guy carrying a crowbar or something like that. Within moments. Yeah. Hundreds of bodies began piling up inside the theatre.
[00:23:32] Victims were asphyxiated by fire, smoke gases. Yeah. All were crushed to death by the on rush of terrified patrons behind them. Cool. 575 people were killed on the day of the fire. At least 30 more died weeks.
[00:23:44] Rod: I'm gonna say I'm amazed it's that low. Honestly, I'm amazed
[00:23:47] Will: out of 2100.
[00:23:48] Rod: Yeah. I'm amazed. So I would've thought you were gonna say a thousand or more
[00:23:51] Will: so, so a lot a, a lot died. Absolutely. But yeah, a lot did get out. So we're talking, maybe two thirds of the audience got out and
[00:23:58] Rod: horrible, but better than I thought.
[00:24:00] Will: Yeah, absolutely. But here's the thing, the Great Fire of Chicago, which is a pretty famous big fire I've heard of that. Only killed 300 people, so this was this.
[00:24:06] Rod: So not that great. Yeah. This is the great turf fire of Chicago.
[00:24:10] Will: Nothing is great.
[00:24:11] Rod: We didn't call it the great fire of Chicago, that's on history. That's true. That's so this is the great even greater fire of Chicago as measured by deaths. If you assume deaths are great, which we do not.
[00:24:21] Will: One story I read said that the the bodies were piling up 10 feet in some places.
[00:24:27] Rod: Sure. Like nine bodies deep. Who knows? Gross, horrible, bad. I mean, do we really need to know that
[00:24:33] Will: most of most of this all happened before the firefighters could even get on the scene. Course it all happened in about 15 minutes and it seemed to 'cause there was no telephone to alert the fire brigade a, a stage hand had to run to the nearest fire, hey, nearest fire station. And then they had to come over with their
[00:24:52] Rod: Chicago are good for having lots of fire stations. I thought though,
[00:24:55] Will: you would've thought , I feel like they did. So loss of life, you know, it's horrible. It's, oh, it's horrendous. Yeah, it's horrendous. It was different. There had been theatre disasters before. This was particularly middle class, particularly women and children. I forgot that part. Yeah. Yeah. The the families of Chicago's elect, the wives and children of its most prosperous businessmen and the flower of local society. The deaths look horrible as it was, did galvanize the city. Sure. And yeah it would've been, it would've been good if people had been galvanized before and maybe done something
[00:25:30] Rod: well they did. They built an entirely fireproof theatre.
[00:25:35] Will: Days later, the Chicago Tribune ran a list of regulations that have been flattered by the theatre. So this is the existing regulation, which is issue number two, lack of adequate fire alarm, automatic sprinklers, marked exits, suitable fire extinguishing devices, and also, you know, not having water.
[00:25:51] They didn't like the kill fire extinguishers. And they didn't like what's not too, didn't like the flues at the top of the roof being bolted down
[00:25:58] Rod: really picky.
[00:25:59] Will: So the newspaper called for action. The only atonement that can be made to these helpless victims of negligence is to make the theatres of Chicago absolutely safe so that none others may meet their fate.
[00:26:09] Rod: Absolutely safe
[00:26:10] Will: it was really hard to say who was at fault here. Everyone pointed the finger at everyone else. Like the owners. Well, the owners
[00:26:18] Rod: I'm gonna go with the owners bear some responsibility.
[00:26:21] Will: Yeah. But they wrote a statement to the newspaper blaming the audience for panicking.
[00:26:26] Rod: Look, I'll make a joke out of almost anything, but you fucks like, you've gotta be kidding me. It's the burnies fault.
[00:26:32] Will: Despite being admonished to be calm and avoid any rush,
[00:26:36] Rod: oh, I told 'em to calm down and they didn't. Yeah, those children, Being trampled to death, running from flames, being unable to breathe
[00:26:45] Will: you have to be wildly wild to blame the victims.
[00:26:49] Rod: Well, no, to be fair, I think there are layers of victim blaming in the world. Yeah, there, there're this one's all of them.
[00:26:55] Will: Yeah. So, and other people said, well, surely it's the city, you know, the, their regulations aren't good enough. Or it's the fact that their regulations weren't enforced.
[00:27:05] You know, could it have been corruption? Could it have been the builders didn't do things, incompetence, blah, blah. Yeah. After a bunch of investigations, heaps of testimony, three years of legal wrangling, no one was ever held criminally liable. The only thing, so Will Davis was one of the owners? He was tried but not convicted. The only like actual recompense was a few payouts to some families from the construction company.
[00:27:29] Rod: From the construction company. Sorry for the inconvenience. You must feel terrible. Here's 10 bucks.
[00:27:34] Will: I dunno. But it did finally force people to take action and say, Hey maybe the spaces we go into, the buildings and things like that should actually be made Unburned downable or at least something closer.
[00:27:47] There, there was that thing about, was it the existing codes weren't enough or weren't they enforced? But people said, well, let's do both. Let's enforce. And make them better. Cool. So within days, they shut down all the theatres in the city for the next six weeks to, to get them up to code. Wow. A bunch in the rest of the country followed suit and a bunch in Europe as well.
[00:28:05] There's people all around, like, there's people in different countries going, all right let's just not do this anymore. Yeah. And so they came out Chicago City Council. It came out with new ordinance that compelled structural changes, including new standards for aisles and exits so that, you know, more than one person could go down an aisle at a time.
[00:28:24] Rod: Fucking hippies,
[00:28:25] Will: Hand wringing pearl clutches
[00:28:27] Rod: use of fireproofing on the scenery. So the scenery is not made of like, like flammable stuff,
[00:28:33] Will: only asbestos scenery.
[00:28:34] Rod: Possibly.
[00:28:35] Will: Well, you solve one problem. Yeah, wait a while. Connected fire alarms. Yeah. Limits on occupancy. The elimination of standing tickets, which I think is a frigging no brainer. Like the idea of let's just pack in the space with people that
[00:28:49] Rod: I've got an idea. Don't jam them in so it's dangerous anyway. If someone sneeze too loud.
[00:28:55] Will: Oh my god. Cool. You know, putting in sprinkler requirements. Yeah. Rules on rooftop flues, basically, they're not allowed to be nailed shut. Yeah. If you have 'em, open 'em. And enduring changes that there has to be lighting over the exits. They can't be hidden behind curtains and you have to put a red light to ke kept burning over exits that is on a separate power supply from the rest of the lighting. They also came out with locks on doors that you can't get in from the outside.
[00:29:19] So doors open outwards. Not inwards. And you know, there's crash bars that when you come up to like one of those, your classic gym school that's room that's, you just push on it and out you go. So as quickly as you want, oh you goes, it's worth it. Iroquois theatre was rebuilt. Renamed the Heiden Bemans Music Hall in 1904, fireproof music hall and then changed the Colonial theatre with the building was demolished in 1925
[00:29:45] Rod: 'cause it burned down again?
[00:29:47] Will: No, I don't think so. And then and another theatre was built there and a theatre again. So it's currently called The Netherland the Netherland completely real boot. And while the asbestos curtain didn't so save the day. Regulations in a number of different places, made them mandatory in theatres for a long time, particularly between the 1950s and the 1980s. And there are still a bunch of asbestos curtains in theatres around the world, which are probably good in some ways. But yeah,
[00:30:16] Rod: as long as you don't scratch them and get the fibers off. My question, it's been racking. It's like in my brain, the whole episode. What is asbestos curtain a euphemism for? 'cause I'm sure it's something. Let us know. I know there's some of you out there. You have Grotty dirty minds.
[00:30:38] Will: You'll look it up on Urban Dictionary or get something into Urban dictionary.
[00:30:40] Rod: Yeah, at the asbestos curtain. It's insert horrible here.
[00:30:45] Will: We'll see you next week
