The Knickerbocker Theater Tragedy

To anyone who was disappointed that last week's Saturday History Tour featured only one editorial cartoon, I apologize. This week, I'll bring you twice as many.

On the weekend of January 26-27, 1922, a heavy blizzard made its way slowly up the east coast, dumping 20" or more of snow from the Carolinas to Pennsylvania, including atop the Knickerbocker Theater in our nation's capital.

ad in Washington Times, Jan. 22, 1922

On Saturday, January 28, the weight of all that snow collapsed the theatre's roof onto upwards of 300 people there shortly after the silent comedy "Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford" had begun. The roof fell onto the balcony, which in turn collapsed onto the orchestra level. Many witnesses reported that the crash came suddenly and without warning — no prior creaking or groaning of the timbers supporting the structure. 

On the other hand, one survivor, Washington Post film reviewer John Jay Daly, said that he was alerted to a problem as the few first crumbs of plaster fell. He exited to the lobby moments before the ceiling fell inside the theater, and found himself thus the Post's reporter at the scene, fending off other survivors who wanted him to get off the phone across the street so they could call for help.

There were several newspapers publishing in Washington D.C. at the time, but to the best of my knowledge, only one of them employed its own editorial cartoonist. So while the front page of Monday's Washington Evening Star sported this cartoon by Clifford Berryman... 

"Columbia's Anguish" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Jan. 30, 1922

...the other newspapers in town ran cartoons about the Harding administration selling the navy up the river, or reminiscing about school days, etc. There is, however, a generic quality to Berryman's cartoon: absent any reference to the theatre, the snow, or anything else peculiar to this particular disaster, the cartoon could just as easily have been something sitting in Berryman's desk waiting for death to strike anywhere.

All the other newspapers in town covered the story, of course:

Sunday Star and Washington Herald of Jan. 29, 1922; Washington Times of Jan. 30, 1922

The disaster occurred after the Sunday Washington Times went to press, but it caught up with the other newspapers in town on Monday. Its death count turned out to be slightly exaggerated; the official toll would be 98 dead, 133 injured. The disaster was, at the time, the second most deadly structural engineering failure in the United States, after the Pemberton Mill collapse in Lawrenceville, Massachusetts in 1860. (The collapse of Kansas City, Missouri's Hyatt Regency walkway in 1981 would kill 114; last year's collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida last year currently ties the Knickerbocker disaster in third place.)

The dead at the theater included former Congressman Andrew J. Barchfeld of Pennsylvania and the wife of his son Elmer, members of the orchestra including director Ernest Nattiello, a sister of the Guatemalan minister, capitol reporters from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Pittsburgh Dispatch, as well as students, businessmen, military officials, attorneys, and men, women and children from many walks of life.

Flags at the nation's capital were ordered flown at half-staff for ten days.

Photo in Washington Herald, Jan. 29, 1922

At the time, the Knickerbocker had been the newest and largest movie theater in D.C. Building inspector John G. Healy initially told reporters that he saw no-one to blame for the collapse. "In my opinion, it was nothing more than the hand of God. It was one of those things that cannot be explained. However, the facts are such that it would suggest that although the construction of the roof met all the necessary requirements, the point which first gave way under the strain was not strong enough to hold the great weight of the snow."

Photo in Washington Evening Star, Jan. 30

Although there were reports that theater staff had considered shoveling the snow off the roof but decided not to, the focus of investigations quickly centered on the building's construction — Inspector Healy's attempts to blame God for the disaster notwithstanding. 

Harry Crandall commissioned architect Reginald Geare to design the theater in 1917. Investigations by the city government and coroner's office, and both houses of Congress, would conclude that the disaster was the result of Geare's use of arch girders instead of stone pillars to support the roof

"The Life Taker" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Jan. 31, 1922

Their careers in ruins, Geare died by suicide in 1927, and Crandall killed himself ten years after that. You might consider their suicides to bring the disaster's total death toll up to an even 100.