Legendary LBFD Chief Featured in HBO Documentary

The exterior paint is chipping at the beige house, the cement porch is filled with lightening-like cracks, and there are no trees or shrubs along the corner property at Lindell Boulevard and West Penn Street. If not for the home’s grand size, it could easily go unnoticed, which is ironic given its lavish history. 

The home was built and created by former Fire Chief Edward Croker, a man of great statue in the world of fire prevention in 1913. Croker spent a year constructing this home that was to be the first fire-proof home in the world.

Croker would often test his design, frequently lighting parts of the home on fire to ensure its safety. On Oct. 30, 1914, Croker held his first house warming party, welcoming his former New York City fire chief predecessor, Board and Examiners of Manhattan and Long Beach, a number of presidents from fire insurance companies, professors from Columbia University, his neighbors and a New York Times reporter, who documented the article the following day.

"It's a very interesting story," said Doug Sheer, vice president of the Long Beach Island Landmark Association. "I'm intrigued to see the house. The articles [shown in the NY Times] are fascinating. There's a nice descriptions of the house and even pictures of the inside." 

According to the Times’ story, Croker brought all his guests to the second floor of his home, where the walls, floors and rafters were made of cement, the doors, trimmings and furniture of metal, and, interestingly enough, the carpets and furniture coverings of asbestos. He poured a couple of gallons of gasoline into a room, lit a match and then shut the room's metal door and dined with his guests in the next room. The fire was confined to the room, and beyond a reported crack in the metal wire of the room's window, the room remained undamaged.

Croker's interest with fire began in 1884, when he left his job as a brakeman for the New York Central Railroad to become a fireman. He was promoted to assistant foreman within 47 days. Soon after he began studying firefighting science, construction techniques, and fireproofing, and in 1899 he became chief of the New York Fire Department. 

His first act of duty was to make all NYC factory buildings install sprinklers, which at that time was not yet required by law. Croker stated there had never been a loss of life in a sprinkler-equipt building. But business owners banded together, forming the Protective League of Property Owners, and refused to install the sprinklers due to the construction costs.   

Three weeks later a catastrophic fire broke out in the Triangle Waist Company in NYC, resulting in the death of 146 workers, mostly women and young girls. Croker and his men battled the blaze but were defeated due to the height of the building and enormous state of the fire that engulfed the factory in less than 18 minutes.      

Approaching the 100 year anniversary of the tragedy, HBO will release a documentary, “Triangle: Remembering The Fire," at 9 p.m. on March 21. It covers the history behind this preventable fire, along with the names of the women killed, interviews with family members and coverage of NYC fire Chief Croker.

While researching Croker, HBO Line Producer/Researcher and Long Beach resident Kara Rozansky discovered that Croker left Manhattan a year after the monumental fire and moved to Long Beach, where he became chief of Long Beach's fire department and established a fire prevention company that still exists.  

"I have a lot of love for this film and for Croker," said Rozansky, who went in search of his fire-proof home. "He really called for all of these things and was there to see his most dire predictions come true. I've been dying to know if his house is still around."   

Unfortunately all that remains of Croker's fire-resistant home is the heavy metal door that access the now apartment complex lobby.   

Croker died in 1951 in Lindenhurst at the age of 85. He left behind his founding company, Croker National Fire Prevention Engineering Company, a fireproofing and fire safety consulting and manufacturing firm, and a 354-page book entitled "Fire Prevention," which schools and companies still use today.    

In Long Beach, he had within ten days a fire combination truck, a staff of ten prominent volunteer firefighters, and a uniform of black trousers, blue shirts and red helmets, designed so that wealthy volunteer firemen could wear their uniform to social functions and not have to go home to change in case of a fire.

"I have no ambition in this world but one, and that is to be a fireman,” Croker once said. “The position may, in the eyes of some, appear to be a lowly one; but we who know the work which the fireman has to do believe that his is a noble calling. Our proudest moment is to save lives.”