ALEXANDER HAMILTON HOTEL

ALEXANDER HAMILTON HOTEL October 18 1984

On Oct. 18, 1984, an arson fire swept the shabby Alexander Hamilton Hotel in downtown Paterson - a once elegant building that fell into disrepair - killing 15 people and injuring about 60 others. "People were screaming, trying to tie sheets and blankets together to get out the windows," said hotel resident Lusylvia Rivera, 33, quoted by the Associated Press. She fled with her three children from a room on the first floor of the residential hotel. "The ones who were more scared just went ahead and jumped," Rivera said.

Tour 3 on duty: Box 181 - Market and Church streets - was transmitted at 12:14 a.m. and the incident ``quickly escalated to three alarms and all of the city's fire units responded, as did firefighters from five nearby towns,'' The New York Times said. ''We have people trapped, we have people jumping,'' Paterson Fire Capt. Domenick Cotroneo told The Times. Fire Chief William Comer, quoted by the AP, said "the fire spread so fast and the flames were so intense" that the blaze jumped from the third floor through air ducts and engulfed four or five floors of the eight-story hotel.

Battalion Chief Frank Crampton said Paterson firefighters encountered "very poor visibility, panicky people, unconscious people lying on floors," according to the AP.
Harry Moore, who escaped from the second floor with his wife and two babies, said "It happened all of the sudden," according to the AP. "A girl knocked on the door and screamed, 'Get out of the place,'" Moore said. "When we got out, the place was in flames. We grabbed what we could, the babies first of course."

Courtesy Sharon Woodfruff

Haycock Collection

Investigators determined paint and other materials stored in the hotel fueled the flames.
Passaic, Clifton and Hawthorne were among the communities to send mutual aid.

Some victims succumbed to their injuries days later, including Christino Ramirez, 53, who died Oct. 24 at Hackensack Medical Center's burn unit. ''When he arrived here he had third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body,'' said Lisa Hoffman, a hospital spokeswoman quoted by United Press International.

Russell W. Conklin, 44, a TV repairman and resident of the hotel, was convicted of manslaughter and arson and sentenced to prison on Nov. 6, 1985. The Washington Post described Conklin as "an embittered handyman who may have been drunk."

Paterson Mayor Frank X. Graves, quoted by the AP, said Conklin "had a fight with the night manager. He's the one that supposedly started the fire. The manager locked the guy in the room. He lit the sheets on fire and climbed out the back window. The suspect is saying this." Conklin served more than a decade behind bars and was released from a state prison on April 23, 1997, according to the web site of the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

Below is an early news clip published before the number of deaths recognized

Haycock Collection

For a video produced by Louis Ponstingel about the Hotel Tragedy click the button below

Alexander Hamilton Hotel Video

Bill Duncan, Ray "Koz" Kozlowski & Mike Ross - T-1, Tour 3 Alexander Hamilton Hotel Fire, Church St. side

April 26, 1985 the FMBA presented the Deputy Chief James P Sweeney Award and the Harry Kelly Award to fireman Vincent Zito of Truck Company 2, Tour 3. On February 27, 1985 He also received the Firehouse Magazine Heroism and Community Service Awards program of $3,000 which was the top monetary award in the seventh annual program, the largest of its kind in the country. Zito was cited for his bravery in the Oct. 18, 1984, fire at the Alexander Hamilton Hotel, one of the worst blazes in the city's history. Fourteen people were killed and Zito was hospitalized for a week with acute smoke inhalation and exhaustion.

An aerial was raised to the seventh floor. Zito ascended and assisted an elderly man down to safety. He reclimbed and started to remove a hysterical woman who informed him her daughter was still inside. He searched the hotel hallways for people stranded in the dense smoke and heat and he found an unconscious 8-year-old girl on the seventh floor, and gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, dragged her back to an apartment and handed her to a comrade (at the 7th floor window) who carried her down an aerial ladder.

Zito went back to the smoky hallway and found two more unconscious people. After trying in vain to drag their bodies to safety, the firefighter, who was near collapse from exhaustion and smoke inhalation, directed fellow firefighters to the victims. 'Firefighter Vincent Zito's courage and dedication is in the finest tradition of America's bravest,' the magazine said.

Hancock Collection