Fire destroys Chicago building
From Staff and Wire Services
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Fire engulfed a vacant building beside a busy downtown commuter train line on Tuesday, injuring two people and disrupting today’s morning commute as officials worried the six-story building might collapse on to the tracks.
One firefighter and a civilian were hospitalized in good condition for minor injuries related to the blaze, said Fire Department spokesman Will Knight.
The fire was just one block west of Michigan Avenue in the heart of downtown Chicago, according to Jennifer Torrens, former Gazette reporter who now lives in Chicago.
Kevin Smith, a spokesman for the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications, said a "collapse zone" was cordoned off around the brick building, on the south side of Chicago's downtown Loop, for fear it could come crashing down. Two nearby buildings used by Columbia College also were closed today because of the danger, said school spokeswoman Micki Leventhal.
The Tuesday fire and the danger of collapse shut down a section of elevated track that serves two Chicago Transit Authority rail lines and disrupted the commute this morning, including on the line that connects the Loop to Midway Airport.
“Streets were blocked off in a three-block radius and the south loop’s El trains were stopped,” Torrens wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette.
Fire Department spokeswoman Eve Rodriguez said the fire seemed to have started in the building's basement and spread to the roof. A hazardous materials team was called in because of concerns about flammable materials in a lower section of the building, which once housed the George Diamond Steakhouse.
The 1887 building was designed by the storied architectural firm of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler and was designated a city landmark in 1996.