Destroyed Buildings on Broadway, American Museum

Above, frozen ruins of the "New" Barnum's American Museum, at 539-541 Broadway, between Spring and Prince streets, as it appears immediately after the fire on the morning of March 3, 1868. Photograph (originally stereograph) published by Edward and Henry T. Anthony & Co. Source: J. Paul Getty Museum.

On the right, buildings on the west side Broadway after the fire. Photograph of the series American (stereoscopic) views ; New York City. Source: New York Public Library.

Further down, the burned building and the effects of the festoons of ice on the Broadway front as published in the Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, March 21, 1868. From aphotograph by C.D. Fredricks & Co.

The American Museum, originally founded in 1790 by the Tammany Society. The first Barnum's American Museum operated on Broadway, at Ann Street. It was also destroyed by fire in 1865. In the same year, Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810–1891) opened this new American Museum at 539-541 Broadway.

Here, some text related to this calamity, published by the Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper:

Shortly after 12 o'clock on the morning of March 3 flames were discovered issuing from the windows of the bird department, located on the third floor of P.T. Barnum's Museum Building. An alarm was promptly sounded, and in a brief space of time several hundred persons were at the scene. The Fire Department was rather tardy in its appearance on the premises, owing to the depth of snow and an alarm of fire raised a short time previously, and when the steamers took up their position the discovery was made that a majority of the hydrants in the neighborhood were frozen, practically useless. By the time, therefore, that the engines got in working order, the flames, aided by a high wind, and fed by the large amount of inflammable materials about the Museum, had gained such headway that it became apparent that neither the building, nor the animals and curiosities contained therein, could be saved.