By Adam Bass
masslive.com
WORCESTER, Mass. — Tuesday, Dec. 3, marks 25 years since the Worcester Cold Storage and Warehouse and Co. building fire, a five-alarm fire that killed six Worcester firefighters.
To commemorate the 25th anniversary, a pop-up exhibit has been set up in the interior of Union Station that features displays that tell the story of the fire and honors the fallen “Worcester 6″: Lt. Thomas Spencer, Lt. Timothy Jackson Sr ., Lt. James Lyons III and firefighters Jeremiah Lucey, Paul Brotherton and Joseph McGuirk.
The exhibit was put together by a committee of retired firefighters, according to Bert Davis, a former lieutenant from the Worcester Fire Department. The exhibit features old newspaper clippings that told the story of the fire and the funerals of the fallen six, art and letters from school children expressing their support and grief for the department, pictures of the Worcester 6, plaques that have their names carved in them, fire fighting equipment, bricks from the building, patches and clothes from other fire departments and a model of the warehouse where the fire took place.
Davis, who is part of the committee and was at the scene of the fire when it took place 25 years ago, told MassLive that members of the fire department had collected the items in the exhibit for years.
“We put it in storage and we accumulated and we said it has to be displayed so people can see what those people have done,” Davis said. “These are very nice items here.”
The display will remain in Worcester’s Union Station from Tuesday until Wednesday, according to the city’s website. The exhibit hours are Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Entering the front doors of Union Station, there are six black cutouts of firefighters lined up next to each other.
Next to the cutouts is the path leading to the exhibit, shaped like a rectangle with black curtains draped on three of its four sides. On this path is a piece of framed collage artwork consisting of newspaper clippings with headlines that read, “Touching farewell,” and “Prayers console a mourning city.”
On the other side of the pathway is a table with a Worcester Red Sox uniform with the number six printed on its front. In 2019, the team retired the number six from their jerseys to honor the six fallen firefighters.
The exhibit has 15 black bulletin boards placed up against the curtain walls. Some of these boards feature more newspaper reports, with two Telegram and Gazette papers featuring the headlines “Six firefighters lost in inferno” and “The building from hell” written on the top of the page. Quilts, cards, letters and artwork from school children are posted on other boards throughout the exhibit, with one piece of paper that reads: “Sorry for your losses.” One bulletin board has pieces of paper detailing the timeline of the fire. Underneath the board is a model of the warehouse that once stood on 266 Franklin St. , which the Franklin Street Fire Station replaced.
Similar tables displayed more art, newspapers, patches from other fire departments, and letters from children that read “I’m sorry.”
Davis’s favorite piece at the museum is a carved firefighter’s hat made out of wood. The hat was hand-carved by prisoners from the state of Maine.
“Our incident touched prisoners that were incarcerated,” Davis said. “It kind of brings things out to light for me.”
Another table had an orange bucket from Home Depot—one of many that the company donated to the fire department to help clean up the building, according to retired firefighter Angelo Bongovio, who helped fight the blaze.
Bongovio, one of the several firefighters who battled the blaze, was close to Paul Brotherton, who was in the same class in 1983. Bongovio remembered Brotherton as a funny person and a great firefighter.
Kevin Hartigan, another retired firefighter, said he was close with Jeremiah Lucey and Thomas Spencer, with the latter sharing a love for baseball with Hartigan. Hartigan was not at the scene of the blaze that night, but he and his partner heard what was going on on the radio. When he heard firefighters were lost in the building, they were shocked.
“We were devastated,” Hartigan recalled. “We were going, ‘Did they just say that?’
Following the fire and the cleanup operation, a memorial service was held on Dec. 9 at the Centrum, now known as the DCU Center. Attending the event was then-President Bill Clinton, who spoke to the crowd.
As the 25th anniversary approaches, Bongovio told MassLive he still keeps his fellow firefighters’ memories alive in his mind and heart.
“We just remember the guys, the sacrifice they made and the job well done,” Bongovio said. “There’s a headline over there from the Telegram and it tells you the whole thing. It says the building from hell. It really sums up what that building was.”
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