Kevin Baker Reading From Dreamland At Triangle Fire Commemoration At F.I.T.

part 1

part 2

part 3

from March 9
Stories and Songs of the Triangle Fire
5:30 pm, Katie Murphy Amphitheater, D Building
Meredith Tax, author, Rivington Street
Kevin Baker, author, Dreamland
Katharine Weber, author, Triangle
Songs and readings by FIT students
a few of the pages Kevin read
dreamland-pages

about the Fighting Flames exhibit that Kevin was referring to
from the jcs-group
The success of Luna Park spawned second-rate imitators. Only William H. Reynolds, a New York politician, had the clout and backing to truly compete. Reynolds bought 60 acres of land from the City of New York between Surf Avenue and the ocean. His dream was to build the most bewildering, excessive, visionary park in the world. It would hold 250,000 people. Its one million electric lights would pale Luna Park in comparison. Visitors would feel as if they had been transported to another world, so Reynolds called his park Dreamland which opened in the spring of 1904. The centerpiece of Dreamland was the 375- foot Beacon Tower. At night, its powerful searchlight shone almost 50 miles over the ocean, disorienting ships on their way into New York Harbor. The park featured an imitation Doge’s Palace, an electricity building (housing the generators that kept Dreamland’s power running) and the Fighting Flames exhibit, the six-story tenement replication that was set on fire every day.