Fire at Pratt Institute Badly Damages Historic Building, Ruins Student Artwork
- The Daily News
This morning I was woken up by a text from a family friend asking if I was ok. I had no idea what she was talking about so I took to Facebook, the ultimate modern news source, to find out what she meant. There it was, all over my news feed: a fire had started in the Main Building at Pratt Institute at just past 2am. I am in my third year at Pratt. I love my school. And I really love the campus, especially the mixture of historic and modern architecture that litters the lawn. The Main Building is one of the historic ones, built in 1886, a year before the school was founded. It’s what usually pops up when you Google image search Pratt Institute.
Thankfully no one was injured in the fire, but serious damage was done to the 127-year-old building, and countless pieces of student artwork were destroyed. According to Pratt’s website, the sixth floor of the building and the roof have been completely destroyed, and the fifth floor was badly damaged. Throughout the building, which is primarily studio spaces with administrative offices on the lower levels, there is a fair amount of water damage. The destroyed studios were mainly used for senior painting majors working on their theses. PIeces the students had been working on since the beginning of the school year in August are now gone.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but fire marshals consider it to be suspicious, as much of the building is empty after nine pm.
