Fire Escape Collapse, 1975
This photo was taken by photographer Stanley Forman in 1975. While Forman was a news photographer for the Boston Herald at the time, and when he got the call about the fire on Marlborough Street, it was nothing out of the ordinary for him. He arrived at the scene when Diana Bryant (19) and her goddaughter Tiare Jones (2) were standing on the fire escape.
Suddenly, the fire escape collapsed and Forman hurried to take the photos. It took him a minute to realize what was about to happen before he stopped shooting and turned his head around. Bryant didn’t survive the fall, but her goddaughter was cushioned by her body, and she survived. Forman’s photos that captured the horrible moment made headlines, won him a Pulitzer Prize and most importantly, encouraged municipalities around the country to enact better fire-escape-safety codes.