June 21, 1901 @12:30 PM: The worse fire, with respect to loss of life, in Paterson's history (17 dead) was a major explosion in Abram Rittenberg's fireworks shop on the first floor of a tenement house (Walker's Flat) at 438-444 Main Street. The horrific details are in the newspaper articles that follow: the first report was published the day of the fire. The second report is the day after. The amount of details provided by reporters of the day is astonishing to those of today who get news in tweets. Many perished in initial
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