The Mischief Makers of Second Street
Seattle's fire department gets a workout from phantom alarms in the Boston Block.
The fire department was called out twice yesterday afternoon between 3 and 4 o'clock, but in each case the alarm was uncalled for, and the second was undoubtedly the work of a person who desires to worry the firemen. The first alarm was from box 12 and was due to the fact that a stove pipe in J. Berkman Co.'s dry goods store on South Second street fell down unexpectedly. There was no fire or danger, but someone pulled in an alarm. The fire apparatus was on the way home when some person stepped into the entrance of the Boston block and sent in an alarm from the auxiliary to box. All the reserve apparatus except chemical 7 was thus called out and the apparatus on its way home had to make a second run. This is not the first time that box has been pulled by mischievous persons.
“The fire apparatus was on the way home when some person stepped into the entrance of the Boston block and sent in an alarm.”
False alarms and 'mischievous persons' pulling boxes remain a perennial headache for urban emergency services, a century of technology later. The Boston Block, a historic landmark of downtown Seattle's early commercial core, has long since vanished to make way for the city's modern skyscraper footprint.
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