This day in The Record in 1916
Wednesday, May 17, 1916
The entire Troy police department is combing the city for suspects in a suspicious downtown fire, including a man who fled the scene with his pants on fire.
The Record reports that a suspected getaway driver for a presumed arsonist is under police surveillance at Troy Hospital, where he is being treated for a broken leg apparently sustained during his arrest in front of the Essex launch on Third Street.
The fire breaks out at the Hickey Building on 14 Third Street, located between Proctor’s Griswold Theater and the offices of the Sunday Budget newspaper. The building is occupied by the Travelers’ Shoe Company, which had just recently opened a shop on the first floor, and the Guarantee Dental Company, which occupies the second and third floors.
Shortly after smoke is seen coming from the building, an explosion is heard, fueling suspicion that the fire was set deliberately.
Soon afterward, Police Sergeant Myers is patrolling at the corner of Fulton and River Streets when he sees a man running up Third Street with the left leg of his pants “burning briskly at the bottom.” His first instinct is to help the man put the fire out, but as he approaches he hears another man shout, “Arrest him!”
The burning man reacts first, dodging Myers and turning right on Fulton before darting right into Church Street. Myers gives chase, joined by several civilians, but is unable to catch or stop the suspect despite firing four shots. The presumed arsonist bursts onto Broadway and heads back south on Third. In spite of the crowds watching the fire, “all trace of him was lost.”
People on the street recognize the fugitive as a person who had been standing outside the Hickey Building around the time they first saw smoke in the building.
Investigators suspect that William Wandell, the suspected getaway driver, was waiting to pick up the fugitive. Mayor Cornelius F. Burns has ordered the police to keep Wandell from talking to anyone at the hospital. The mayor reportedly was among the people chasing the burning man.
The fire is confined to Gurantee Dental, which is gutted, while Travelers’ Shoe suffers extensive water damage, as do the adjoining buildings to lesser extents. Budget publisher C. A. MacArthur estimates damages at approximately $1,200.
Louis Cooperman, a partner in the dental firm, tells investigators that partner Morris Lubin left town at 7 p.m. Where Lubin went is unclear. “One report had it that he had gone to New York on the Empire State Express to buy teeth,” our reporter notes, while another has him going to Utica.