Mar 27, 2009 2:53 pm US/Central
Disaster On LaSalle: The Paxton Hotel Fire Of 1993
Some Residents Of Single-Room Occupancy Hotel Were Incinerated Beyond Recognition
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Twenty people were killed and more than two dozen were injured in a 1993 fire at the Paxton Hotel, a single-room occupancy facility at 1432 N. LaSalle Blvd.
CBS
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Nineteen people were killed and 31 were injured in a 1993 fire at the Paxton Hotel, a single-room occupancy facility at 1432 N. LaSalle Blvd.
CBS
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Nineteen people were killed and 31 were injured in a 1993 fire at the Paxton Hotel, a single-room occupancy facility at 1432 N. LaSalle Blvd.
CBS
On March 25, 2009, a small fire broke out in one room of a residential hotel on LaSalle Boulevard on the city's Near North Side.
All things considered,
the fire at the Carling Hotel turned out to be minor. The 125 residents of the hotel were temporarily displaced, but no one was seriously injured, and the blaze was contained to one room.
But for firefighters, reporters, and people following the news that day, the blaze conjured a chilling memory of another fire that happened in a similar hotel less than a block away 16 years earlier. That fire left 20 people dead, and some bodies were incinerated to the point where they couldn't be recognized.
This is the story of the fire at the Paxton Hotel, at 1432 N. LaSalle Blvd., arguably the most tragic fire in recent Chicago history.
Video Library
SLIDESHOW: Deadly 1993 Paxton Hotel Fire
The Disaster On LaSalle
The Paxton Hotel stood along a busy stretch of LaSalle Boulevard, with other single-room occupancy hotels and old brownstones and townhomes adjoining it, the soaring Sandburg Village high-rise complex across the street, and bustling Old Town a block west on Wells Street.
The hotel rented to low-income residents – mostly men, but some women – for a weekly rate of $75. Maid service was provided to change the sheets and towels, and residents described it as quiet and clean.
But all it took was a faulty space heater in one room to bring down the entire hotel, and leave dozens of people dead. The fire broke out in Room 121 of the hotel shortly after 4 a.m. that Tuesday morning. Firefighters called a 5-11 alarm for the blaze, and an Emergency Medical Services Plan III, sending 15 ambulances to the scene.
It was 39 degrees outside when the blaze erupted, and the flames were whipped about by 20 mph winds, the New York Times reported. Residents tried hung from windows, clung to drainpipes, and hurried to escape as the flames chased them.
When firefighters arrived, they saw all four floors of the hotel engulfed in violent flames. Panicky residents were hanging from the windows of the four-story building, and while firefighters rescued more than 100, some ended up jumping to their deaths.
Amid the fire and panic, the blaze also hit electrical lines behind the hotel, creating an eerie, menacing show of sparks as firefighters rushed to rescue as many people as possible.
When it was over, scores of people were being wheeled out of the building, but they were the lucky ones. At least they survived the fire. A total of 20 people weren't so lucky, and 12 hours after the fire was over and crews were demolishing what remained of the building, six of those 20 people still hadn't been found. (Some reports have given the death toll as 19, and erroneously reported the date of the fire as March 23.)
Even four days after the fire, firefighters were still finding bodies at the scene. In one instance, parts of bodies were found scattered away from each other, and firefighters couldn't tell whether they belonged to the same victim, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The Heroes
Firefighters and paramedics who responded that day were rightly hailed as heroes.
CBS 2 spoke with one firefighter, Jim Purl, who rescued seven people.
One of the men Purl rescued was screaming for help on an upper floor. Purl rescued the man and carried him down on the fire ladder, but the man went unconscious and slipped out of Purl's grip.
Purl hung on long enough to save that man's life, and six others, even though he couldn't even see most of the victims.
"I can just hear moans. I can't see nothing through the smoke. You can listen; you hear the people down below," Purl said.
He was one of many firefighters who were hailed as heroes for years to come, after going on what they anticipated would just be a routine call.
Meanwhile, paramedic Mike Nowacki nearly lost his own life after saving two others. The first paramedic on the scene, he walked into the smoke to attend to victims, and found himself in an unusual and potentially deadly situation.
"It was like a reverse role; now I'm laying on the stretcher, and I'm trying to tell my friends that I'm all right, but now I can't communicate with them," Nowacki said.
After the fire was all over, CBS 2 showed Nowacki videotape of his friends saving him. It was a strange new sensation for Nowacki, who saw how the people he saved felt and reacted.
The firefighters, paramedics, police officers and dispatchers who responded to the horrible blaze were praised by Mayor Richard M. Daley and all Chicagoans.
Daley also called for an ordinance to make sprinklers mandatory in all single-room occupancy facilities, for "not only the safety of people in the building, but also firemen who go into the fire too. Had there been a sprinkler system, the tragedy, as I understand, would have never happened."
Safety Questions
The building didn't have sprinklers, but it did have smoke detectors, and they were working. The fire highlighted the safety problems that plagued single-room occupancy buildings all over the city.
One former resident of the Paxton said: "I never felt safe there. Never. I didn't have any smoke alarm. It just wasn't a place to live."
The building code distinction of a single-room occupancy facility was created to provide low-income housing for the homeless. But CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reported that while the change saved money for building owners, it might have cost residents their lives.
In 1989, fire inspectors said the Paxton was dangerous, because it had no alarm system wired to the fire alarm office. It was never installed, because of a 1991 ordinance that changed the definition of SRO buildings under which they were no longer considered hotels.
Building codes for such facilities have been changed in the 16 years since, but officials considered it a tragedy that it took the lives of 20 people to highlight the problems.
Today, a condo complex stands on the former site of the Paxton Hotel, and single-room occupancy hotels are growing fewer and farther between. One such hotel, the Diplomat Hotel at 3208 N. Sheffield Ave., was vacated and closed on March 25, 2009, after the city found building and fire code violations.
Meanwhile, hotel residents, owners and city inspectors alike work to ensure that a tragedy like the Paxton Hotel fire can never happen again.
Video Library
Disaster On LaSalle: About The Fire
Fire Ruled A Tragic Accident
Dozens Hospitalized After Fire
A Man Who Was Lucky To Survive
A Look At The Hero Firefighters
Hotel Demolished After Blaze
The Search For Bodies In The Rubble
A Rescuer Becomes The Rescued
Survivors Lose Everything
How To Survive A Fire
SRO Hotels And Fire Safety
Victims' Families Devastated
A Family Waits For A Missing Resident
3 Firefighters Discuss Blaze
How Firefighters Attacked The Fire
Was The Paxton Hotel Safe?
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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