245 Park Avenue fire evacuation

The 245 Park Avenue fire evacuation began as an ordinary business visit and became a tense descent through a crowded office tower. On December 28, 1979, Andy Warhol went to meet Bob Denison about investments; when smoke and an announcement of fire interrupted the meeting, Warhol rejected the elevator and led the way toward the stairs. The escape ended safely, but his suspicion that the building’s staff had let him ride upward despite knowing of the fire stayed with him afterward.

A Routine Meeting Interrupted

Warhol had spent the day handing out copies of Interview before taking a $3 cab to 245 Park Avenue. He rode the elevator to the twenty-seventh floor. When its doors opened, he smelled something burning. In Denison’s office, Denison was trying to determine whether one of his machines was the source. A secretary then rushed in and said that the building was on fire and they should leave.

The Descent

Denison wanted to take the elevator; Warhol said they should use the stairs. Their first choice was blocked: the exit door was locked. They found another unlocked exit and entered the stairwell, where people said the fire was on the thirty-fifth floor. As they descended, more people joined from the twenty-sixth floor, then the twenty-fifth and twenty-fourth. The growing crowd slowed their progress, but, because the fire was above them, people did not panic. A couple of people nearly fainted. By the time Warhol and Denison reached the ground, hundreds of people had gathered on the street.

Aftermath and Suspicion

Warhol and Denison went to the Trattoria to hold their meeting, but Warhol was too nervous to eat and had only coffee. He could not understand how he had been allowed to go up in the elevator if the staff already knew about the fire. His diary presents this as his suspicion, sharpened by the thought that he might have stepped onto the floor where the fire was burning; he angrily judged the elevator staff for allowing him into the building. The episode’s immediate danger had passed, but the slow, crowded stairwell and the possibility of having been sent unknowingly toward the fire kept the evacuation vivid for him.