From the Vault:
Valentine’s Day 1958
At 6:51 pm Manhattan Box 334 was transmitted for a fire in a six-story loft building at 137 Wooster Street. At the height of the multiple alarm fire, three floors of the Elkins Paper & Twine Company building collapsed trapping numerous members. Five-alarms were struck, and hundreds of off-duty members descended on the scene despite heavy snowfall, bitter winds and icy conditions. Rescue 1 was joined by Rescue 2 in a major tunneling and shoring operation in hopes of reaching two FDNY firemen and four members of the Fire Patrol trapped in the huge, frozen pile of rubble.
Conditions were so dangerous a crane was brought in to remove a large overhanging section of the building that was threatening to crash down upon the rescuers. The operation continued on into the following day, despite another major fire, a fourth-alarm in a lower east-side tenement only blocks away.
Sadly, the six men could not be saved.