 It is a snowy January evening and hundreds are piling into a theatre to watch a film. The movie on show tonight is Get Rich Quick Wallingford, a comedy starring Sam Hardy and Doris Kenyon and it is set to entertain the crowd. No one knows that during the laughter, that above them a disaster was about to unfold. Not only a disaster, but the United States third most deadliest, which would tie it with a building collapse nearly a hundred years later. The theatre is the Nicobocca. Welcome to Plainly Difficult, my name is John and today we're looking at its 1922 collapse. A New Theatre It is the 17th of October 1917 and there is a buzz developing around the southwest intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road northwest in the Adams Morgan neighbourhood north downtown of Washington DC. A modern and exciting building is now open to the public. It's a photo playhouse. Not only that, but it's brought to the ballroom, lounges and even parlours. The lavish new building would be devoted to the burgeoning art of cinema. But although flashy and new for owner Harry Crandall, the Nicobocca theatre today marks another notch in his cinematic empire. Crandall, a film fanatic by 1917, had four theatres under his belt and the opening of the Nicobocca brings this number to five. The theatre boasted seating for up to 1700, a thousand seats on the orchestra floor, 500 in the mezzanine tier and 200 lounge tier chairs. As noted in the evening star of Washington DC at the time, the Nicobocca was designed, built and financed entirely by Washington people. When you look at the pictures it was clearly luxurious for the day. A far cry from the odians I used to go to as a teenager. The building's design was penned by Reginald Wycliffe Gear. He had already designed a number of theatres and were going to design many more, two of which are on the National Historical Landmark Registrar today. The theatre was three stories high with exterior bearing walls, which facilitated the large open space for the cinema. On top of the low bearing exterior wall was meant to be steel trusses and in the design spec was meant to be inserted into the walls for a seating of eight inches. The roof was concrete decked and interestingly for the time it was nice and flat. Now I've used a word meant to because that wasn't the actual case. The year the theatre was built may explain this somewhat, 1917. You see there was a little border dispute under way called World War One and there were metal shortages. Notably in the need for steel. As such some of the spec trusses were changed out for plate girders and beams. This used less metalwork. It was approved by the city but loads were not asked to be recalculated by the architect, structural engineer or even the fabricator. This was due to most likely cost as Crandall had negotiated the lowest fee for the design of the theatre and if the city approved then why pay out any more money. There was another significant change to the design of the building. Apparently undertaken by the contractor was that they only inserted the steels two inches into the low bearing walls, a full six inches too short. This fact would come out later and presumably it was to speed up construction and save cost. However none of these issues seemed to be well an issue, at least for the remaining years of the 1910s. Thousands poured through the theatre's doors to enjoy the wonders of the cinema. Crandall's empire continued to grow and gear would design many more buildings including one still standing today, the Lincoln Theatre in Washington DC which is apparently next to Ben's Chili Bowl which actually has quite a cool history in its own right. Anyways the Nicobocker Theatre settled into the Washington landscape and must have felt like it would be there forever as films became more and more popular and it would until snow started to blanket the nation's capital. A blizzard is coming. 1922 in Washington DC has gotten off to a cult start. It's the 23rd of January and the air is freezing. Hardly anything new but down in the Gulf of Mexico a cyclone was heading north. Snow started to form on its way towards the Carolinas, Pennsylvania and finally Washington DC. Around lunchtime on the 28th of January the snow made its way to the nation's capital covering the region with a thin then thick layer of snow. Railway lines were enveloped, houses and buildings became covered and disruptions across the city bit in. Congress was adjourned and some 28 inches of snow had fallen. Businesses tried to stay open but as the afternoon went on the city became increasingly more paralyzed. But one business that remained open for Patrons was one of the city's largest cinemas, the Nicarbaca Theatre. A popular comedy was to be shown in the evening as such the first showings crowds filled up the cinema leaving standing room only. All afternoon a flat roof had accumulated heavy snow which as the sun went down turned to ice. As more snow fell the strength for the roof was really being tested. The second showing of the day began to welcome Patrons. There were markedly fewer people estimated between 400 and 1000. We can assume many had prioritized getting home for the evening due to the snow. Regardless the film began and the crowd enjoyed the comedy unfold on the big screen. At roughly 9pm one of the trusses under the excessive weight of the snow failed and slipped off its meagre two inch footing on the building's walls. The roof collapsed initially into the balcony then into the main floor of the cinema. In mere seconds the theatre roof was gone and the cold winter air permeated into the building. Over 100 Patrons were trapped underneath the rubble. Anyone nearby ran to the stricken building helping anyone who could escape. One of the survivors called the telephone operator and emergency services were dispatched but the response would take a rather long time as the heavy snow hindered the early 20th century vehicles. Among those who rushed to begin rescuing victims was actually the building's architect. Some ambulances made their way to the theatre and volunteer taxis helped transport the injured. A contingent of US Marines were brought in to assist under the command of George S. Patton. Yes that guy. As the evening gave way to the early hours the numbers of people pulled from the rubble dwindled. Those stuck in the orchestral area remained trapped even into the afternoon of the next day. A young boy was employed to run water to the victims to try and keep them alive. A nearby church was used as a makeshift morgue and shops and houses nearby were used as emergency medical treatment areas. In total 98 were perished in the collapse and over 100 would be injured. Architect Reginald Gear would be vital to the survival of many as his knowledge of the building helped rescuers search the rubble. In the aftermath several committees were set up to try and find out the cause of the collapse. The conclusions would contradict one another but one key point would run through, the snow. It was during these investigative committees that the improper trust seating of two inches came to light. On top of that the modification of some of the trust to plate Gerda also came under scrutiny. As such a grand jury indicted five including the architect, the city's building inspector, the steel fabricator, the building's foreman and the mason for the bearing walls. But not the contractor however all five men were acquitted at trial. As reported in a contemporary story The New York Times reported the snow was a concern to the staff at the theatre. As a conversation about removal reportedly took place but clearly it didn't happen. After the rubble was cleared and the remains of the knickerbocker was pulled down a new theatre was constructed and was named the ambassador. This building lasted until the 1960s when it was also demolished. Reginald Gear was hit pretty hard by guilt and financially ruined after the disaster due to no one wanting to hire the designer of a failed cinema. In 1927 he would take his life and Harry Crandall the cinema's owner would follow 10 years later in 1937. He would leave a note saying please don't be too hard on me boys not for my sake but for those I'm leaving behind me. I'm despondent and I miss my theatre so much. Personally I believe the blame was across the board but the contractor building the seats for the truss to shallow is most likely the culprit. And combined with weaker than initially designed steelwork the roof just couldn't hold the weight of the snow. As such I feel quite bad for the architect Gear especially. The disaster is joint third in the US collapse death history with another one of my videos the Champlain Tower's South Collapse. So the disaster I'm going to give it a rating of negligence due to the improper seating of the trusses and a six on the legacy scale. This is a plain difficult production. All videos on the channel are creative commons attribution share like license. Plain difficult videos are produced by me John in the currently mild corner of southern London UK. I'd like to thank my youtube members and my patrons for your financial support and the rest of you for tuning in every week just to listen to me talk. I have instagram and twitter so check them out if you want to see other random bits and bulbs from behind the scenes. And all that's left to say is thank you for watching and Mr Music play us out please.