Written by Marlie Wasserman

You’ll find Windsor Hotels throughout the world, but you may not realize that Manhattan once had its own Windsor Hotel.

In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, travelers flocked to the luxurious Windsor, at 575 Fifth Avenue, between 46^th and 47^th. With its 600 rooms and seven floors, the Windsor was one of the best and biggest hotels in the city. All that would change, dramatically, on March 17, 1899. 

But first, let’s picture the hotel. In the early 1870s, the men who designed and built the Windsor spared no expense. Dominating a square block, the hotel boasted three turrets, wide halls, elegant furnishings, and a grand central staircase. The owner was Elbridge Gerry, grandson of the better-known Elbridge Gerry who signed the Declaration of Independence and then inadvertently lent his name to the redistricting process known as gerrymandering. Grandson Gerry lived in a mansion at 2 E. 61^st, virtually on Fifth Avenue, fourteen blocks north of the hotel he bought with inherited money. Gerry practiced law and donated money to worthwhile causes. He appears to have been a reasonably responsible landowner. Who would expect him to realize that the hallways lacked fire doors and the fire escapes were untested? Or that the typical guest had no experience rappelling down a fire rope.

Now, let’s picture events outside the hotel. In the late nineteenth century, New Yorkers of all backgrounds enjoyed the St. Patrick’s Day parade, enthralled by musicians playing Irish jigs, girls bedecked in green waving from their floats, and divisions of the Ancient Order of Hibernians wearing even more green. On a sunny, brisk St. Patrick’s Day, 1899, marchers started out from the Worth Monument at 25^th Street, heading north on Fifth Avenue as thousands of spectators lined the way and tapped their feet to the music. 

Once the marchers neared 46^th Street, the mood changed in seconds from joyful to terrifying. Screams drowned out music. Marchers looked up and to their right, to a scene of horror. Women sat on the windowsills of the upper stories of the hotel, some paralyzed with fear. Others dangled on ropes, crying out as their palms flayed, then letting go and dropping to their deaths. Still others simply jumped. Within minutes, hundreds of fire fighters descended on the scene, raising ladders and carrying the luckier of the terrified women to safely. Within two hours, the hotel burned to the ground, leaving rubble that would take weeks to clear. The death toll neared one hundred, though some bodies were charred so badly—with limbs and torsos scattered about–that the count may have been inaccurate. 

We do know that the dead came from all segments of society, including rich guests in the city on holiday, widows and invalids who lived at the hotel, and servants who had kept the hotel running. The city’s newspapers were filled with accounts of the rich, and scant mention of the others. 

Investigators did the best they could, given the state of fire science at the time, to determine the cause of the fire. Theories abounded. Did robbers set the blaze to mask their criminal activities? Did a cigar smoker set fire to a lace curtain? Did the fire start slowly in the basement, while the basement crew was out watching the parade rather than tending to their duties? Maybe bad wiring? Six weeks after the fire, the coroner ruled the cause accidental. Within a few years, a shopping arcade took the place of the grand hotel, and once that was razed, typical non-descript buildings filled the square block.

When I read about the hotel fire, I wondered what that experience must have been like for guests and for servants. Also, the more I read, the more I doubted the coroner’s conclusion. How could such a large building turn to ash so quickly? In my new novel, Inferno on Fifth, I imagine the activities and fears of three society women and three hotel maids as they confront the fire and its aftermath. At the center of the story, Marguerite Wells, a Smith College graduate who stayed at the Windsor, turns amateur sleuth and does her best to set the record right.  

New York officials did encourage changes in the wake of the fire, but not enough. The infamous Shirtwaist Factory resulted in the death of 146 workers, just twelve years later.