Fire on Montague Street

[Taken Friday morning May 17, 1974 day after fire at 130 Montague Street.], 1974, V1974.9.471; John D. Morrell photographs collection, v1974.9; Brooklyn Historical Society.

The photo of the week depicts the damages from a fire that took place on Montague Street in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in the spring of 1974. In a New York Times article published the day after the fire, there were considerable damages to the 130 Montague Street brownstone. The three-alarm fire left six families homeless, and one elderly woman in need of resuscitation (she was otherwise uninjured). It took one hour and 120 firefighters to extinguish the fire.

This photograph comes from the John D. Morrell photograph collection which contains over 2,000 black-and-white and color negatives and prints from 1957-1974. Morrell was an assistant librarian at the Long Island Historical Society (now the Brooklyn Historical Society) and photographed nearly every Brooklyn neighborhood, focusing primarily on buildings and street scenes. We've digitized his entire collection and it is available here.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org