[chris]

Photographer Stanley J. Forman recorded the collapse of a fire escape at an apartment building on Marlborough Street in Boston on July 22, 1975. Diana Bryant, 19, and 2-year-old Tiare Jones were stranded on a fifth-floor fire escape as firefighter Robert O'Neill descended from the roof to reach them. The escape gave way as an aerial ladder approached, sending Bryant and Jones falling about five floors. Bryant died, while Jones survived because her fall was cushioned by Bryant's body.

Forman's sequence shows smoke and flames pouring from the upper windows, the ladder approaching the fire escape and O'Neill reaching toward it. In the collapse frames, O'Neill hangs from the ladder while Bryant and Jones fall with sections of twisted metal around them. The photograph won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and was named World Press Photo of the Year. It was credited with helping prompt tougher fire escape safety laws.

[J81]

I remember being really sad when i seen this on a tv show, when i was around 7

[RogueTrader]

Great photograph.. I'm not surprised that he won awards.

How far did they fall? As in, which storey were they on?

[güttsfükk]

I tried to find out but was unable to i'm afraid. though wikipedia says this is part of a series of pictures, i didnt find the series either. i did how ever find the pulitzer winning photograph he took the next year though

http://www.documentingreality.com/fo...-1976-a-53051/

[fredstones]

She fell 5 floors. Firefighter Robert O'Neill first to find them. Here's a section from his obituary.

Robert O'Neill, firefighter at center of rescue attempt

By Tom Long, Globe Staff | January 27, 2005

Few who saw the images can forget them. It was 1975. Fire was raging through an apartment building on Marlborough Street in the Back Bay. A firefighter stood on a fire escape shielding 19-year-old Diana Bryant and her 2-year-old goddaughter Tiare Jones from the flames. Smoke billowed as a fire engine lifted an aerial ladder to the trio. Just as the ladder neared arm's length, the fire escape collapsed.

The girl and woman fell. Bryant died, Jones was seriously injured. Boston Herald photographer Stanley Forman captured it all on film in a series of award-winning photographs, including one that earned a Pulitzer Prize.


''He was a quiet man. It was nothing he ever really talked about," his daughter, Susan Roman of Plymouth, said yesterday. ''He was of the old school."

But there were ways you could tell if he'd had a rough day. ''You could tell he had come home from a fire, because he reeked of smoke," Roman said. ''And you could tell if there had been a loss of life by the look on his face. Sometimes he wouldn't talk for days. He'd just sit there and read the paper."

Mr. O'Neill made an exception after the Marlborough Street fire and talked with a Boston Globe reporter a couple of days later.

He said he was the tillerman of the first truck to arrive at the scene and went immediately to the roof. He heard screaming from the back of the building and ran across the roof, where he saw a woman and a child crouched on a fire escape.

''She was just screeching," he said. ''She was going to jump."

He asked her to lift the baby to him on the roof, but she was unable to, so he jumped down. ''I kept talking to her, trying to calm her down," he said. ''I told her help was on the way. Both she and the baby were screeching. There was a lot of smoke and fire, and they were frightened."

Mr. O'Neill had just told Bryant he was going to step onto the ladder and asked her to hand the baby to him, when the fire escape collapsed.

''She's gone. She's gone," he recalled thinking.

''Just a couple of more seconds and we'd have been free and clear," he said. ''Sometimes you come close. . . . It happens. But you never get used to it."

[fredstones]

Here's a slide show with Stanley Forman's comments leading up to his famous photos. As a Boston native I've seen the "famous" shots a million times but I have never seen the ones that lead up to them.

BTW...Why can't I edit my original post?

[candymosh]

[güttsfükk]

great video fredstones!
would love to see high quality scans of all those pictures,

[reubthadude]

On July 22, 1975, photograph Stanley J. Forman working for the Boston Herald American newspaper when a police scanner picked up an emergency: “Fire on Marlborough Street!”Climbed on a the fire truck, Forman shot the picture of a young woman, Diana Bryant, and a very young girl, Tiare Jones when they fell helplessly. Diana Bryant was pronounced dead at the scene. The young girl lived. Despite a heroic effort, the fireman who tried to grab them had been just seconds away from saving the lives of both.

Photo coverage from the tragic event garnered Stanley Forman a Pulitzer Prize. More important, his work paved the way for Boston and other states to mandate tougher fire safety codes.

[Photoplay]