At 2:42PM on December 1, 1958 on the sixth floor of Chicago’s City Hall, William Bingham, the senior alarm operator within the Chicago Fire Alarm Office took a phone call from rectory housekeeper Nora Maloney.
Immediately, the loudspeaker at the firehouse at 3700 West Huron crackled with: “Engine 85 , truck 35, Squad 6, Battalion 18, Patrol 7, a still alarm , 3820 Iowa, 3-8-2-0 Iowa”.
Those first firetrucks arrived within three minutes, despite that the fire was actually around the corner at 909 N. Avers.
In the meantime the fire alarm office received a second telephone call from Barbara Glowacki, the owner of a candy store who used the private telephone in her apartment behind the store to say she sees flames. Fifteen more phone calls soon followed.
A school was on fire! Continue reading ““Never witnessed a sight so terrible””