Fire Damages 'The Book of Mormon' Theater in New York City's Broadway District
Broadway’s famed Eugene O’Neill Theatre caught fire Monday, with the blaze quickly escalating to three alarms and causing substantial damage, FDNY officials said.
The electrical fire broke out in a rear mezzanine of the historic theater on W. 49th St. near Times Square about 10 a.m. The theater is currently home to the hit musical “The Book of Mormon,” which has canceled its Tuesday and Wednesday performances.
“It was a deep-seated fire involving a lot of electrical equipment,” FDNY Assistant Chief David Simms said at the scene. “It was a very difficult fire to get to. There was a lot of catwalks, rigging, theater equipment to get through.”
The fire caused substantial damage, mainly to lighting equipment and hanging chandeliers, Simms said.
“Smoke was coming from the roof,” said a man who works in a hotel across the street from the theater who gave his name only as Frank. “First it was just a little bit of smoke. Then it became a lot and it started coming out black … Pretty quick it got worse.”
A third alarm was declared at 10:50 a.m., drawing more firefighters to the scene. After initially dousing the fire between the theater’s fourth and fifth floors, firefighters found additional pockets of flames between the fifth and eights floors, with the fire finally brought fully under control a little after noon, officials said.
One firefighter suffered minor injuries battling the stubborn blaze.
“Everyone has been safely removed from the theater,” a spokesperson for the Ambassador Theatre Group, the company that owns the theater, said in a statement.
Performances of the show will be canceled on Tuesday and Wednesday “out of an abundance of caution and concern for the safety of the cast and company of The Book of Mormon and our audiences.”
Ticket holders will be notified about exchanges or refunds, the statement said.
The theater is one of the most popular attractions on Broadway. When investors renamed the venue to honor Eugene O’Neill in 1959, it marked the first time in Broadway history that a theater had been named for a playwright, according to the theater’s website.
The venue stands in tribute to O’Neill, a Pulitzer Prize winner, whose works included “Strange Interlude,” “The Emperor Jones” and “The Iceman Cometh.”
The theater originally opened in 1925, and was first named the Forrest Theatre in honor of the 19th-century tragedy writer Edwin Forrest. The Shubert brothers developed the venue before it hosted its first show, the musical “Mayflowers.”
In 1945, the theater was renovated and renamed the Coronet Theatre. It has been home to the long-running “The Book of Mormon” since 2011.
Other shows that opened there include “Sweeney Todd,” “Good Vibrations,” “Caroline or Change” and “Death of a Salesman.”
Broadway fan Bill Angell, 23, who works in the theater industry, rushed to the scene when he heard about the fire. He considers every New York Broadway theater irreplaceable.
“There’s only 41 of these theaters around,” he said. “There are no recently built theaters. Every one of them is an architectural marvel and a piece of history unto themselves. And I think part of me would be gutted if one were to burn down.”
U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who represents the area, called the fire “a horrible tragedy.”
“This is a very old building,” he said at the scene. ‘It’s a landmark building. It’s one of the longest and oldest buildings in the neighborhood.”
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