#467 The Brooklyn Theatre Fire: The Forgotten Gilded Age Tragedy

<p>On the evening of December 5, 1876, the glorious <strong>Brooklyn Theatre</strong> caught fire, trapping its audience in a nightmare of flame and smoke. The theater sat near Brooklyn City Hall (today's Brooklyn Borough Hall), and the blaze which destroyed it could be seen as far away as Prospect Park.</p><p>The terrible truth emerged by the morning -- almost 300 people died in this disaster. To this day, it remains the worst disaster in Brooklyn's history in terms of lives lost. Of individual one-day disasters in New York City, only the attacks on the <strong>World Trade Center</strong> and <a href="https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2025/06/remembering-general-slocum-disaster-june-15-1904.html"><strong>the General Slocum disaster</strong></a> have taken more lives.</p><p>But you wouldn't know it from walking through <strong>Cadman Plaza</strong> today, a bustling public area popular with skateboarders and office workers on lunch breaks. Several historic monuments decorate the plaza ...