1900 Hoboken Docks fire

, where she was beached. Amazingly, 16 coal trimmers who had survived the fire hiding in a coal bunker then crawled out of the hulk. Bremen also burned intensely. After her crew threw off her mooring lines, she drifted until she was towed to mid-stream by tugs. She eventually ran aground upriver near Weehawken. More than 200 people were on board when the fire began, including visitors. Initial reports indicated that all managed to leave the ship, but many jumped and may not have reached shore. The holder of the Blue Riband at the time of the fire, NDL's , was also docked in the company's Hoboken piers, but fared better than its sister ships. She was the first of the steamers that tugs tried to pull away from the pier (15 minutes after the fire began). The fire erupted on a Saturday that was considered a “half-holiday” when no departures were scheduled. Had any of the ships been ready to sail, the loss of life and property would have been much greater. ==Other losses==

The fire also destroyed several Campbell Stores warehouses, built by the Hoboken Land & Improvement Company, the nearby piers of the Scandinavian America Line and a railroad shed. According to The New York Times, the railroad shed belonged to West Shore Railroad, although it was more likely a shed of Hoboken Shore Railroad (which connected the West Shore Railroad's lines at the Weehawken Terminal to the Hoboken docks). A shed of Hamburg America Line was partly chopped down during the fire by the fire service to avoid spreading of the fire to the Hamburg America Line piers. The total value of property losses due to the fire was estimated (the morning after the fire) at $6.175 million, ==Aftermath==

The NDL replaced its Hoboken piers with larger, stronger and more fireproof structures. The new steel piers were known as Hoboken Pier Nos. 1, 2, and 3. All of the damaged ocean liners returned to maritime service, Saale under a different name (the SS J. L. Luckenbach). On the first anniversary of the fire, a large granite monument was dedicated in Flower Hill Cemetery in North Bergen, New Jersey above a mass grave containing unidentifiable bodies of the victims, listing the names of the dead and missing. News stories of the fire had described below-deck crew “trying in vain to force their way through the small portholes, while the flames pressed relentlessly upon them.” Others responded that making portholes larger would be cost-prohibitive, or come at the expense of structural strength. In the end, regulations required portholes to be big enough for a person of reasonable size to escape. Later fires in Hoboken In 1905, a fire consumed the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad's Hoboken ferry piers. The piers immediately south of the NDL piers, owned before World War I by Hamburg America Line, were later also destroyed by fire. In 1921, two of the three piers (Hoboken Pier Nos. 5 and 6) were consumed in a fire that also scorched the . In August 1944, Pier No. 4 burned, killing three and briefly setting afire the SS Nathaniel Alexander, a Liberty ship. ==References==