Seventy-seven years after the Hartford Circus Fire, survivors still have sharp memories of the scorching hot July afternoon when Barnum & Bailey's jam-packed big top tent caught fire, with devastating results.
They gathered on Tuesday at the memorial to the victims, which is at the site of the circus on Barbour St., now behind the Wish Elementary School.
Henry Savin, 82, of New London says it's useful to remind the public that not all was lost on July 6th, 1944. Although 168 people died, more than 6,800 people escaped, some due to happenstance, others thanks to heroes who helped hundreds escape. Some due to both.
Savin says he's probably alive, in part, because his father stayed home with a cold. "If my father had brought us, we would have been center, ringside. Nothing else would have worked." He believes it would have been tougher to escape from that position.
Instead, his mother, who had driven 5-year-old Henry, his sister and three cousins to Hartford, brought the kids up to the bleachers.
Although they didn't know it at the time, that's where they caught a big break. They were sitting near two men who were members of the Circus Fans of America.
"They knew how to drop the side flaps on the tent," says Savin. "The tent is the top, and then the side flaps are separate. These guys knew how to drop the lines off... and, boom, they were on the ground. They opened up several sections."
Little Henry slid down a support pole to safety. His mother, sister and cousins also made it out safely.
Harry Lichtenbaum, now 90, says he was settling in for the show when he told his older sister he wanted a better view of all three rings. They moved, as it turned out, closer to an unblocked exit. Barnum & Bailey had blocked several exits with equipment, compounding the disaster that followed.
"The animal cages were moved up to the two exits that we originally sat next to," says Lichtenbaum. "Fortunately, we had moved from the side that was blocked to the side that was empty (the doors)."
The Circus Fire Memorial, which sits on the site of the Barnum & Bailey center ring the day the big top burned in 1944, 7/6/21.Dave Mager/WTIC News
