A fire in the landmark Octagon - possible arson, but still under investigation - brought over 15 pieces of firefighting equipment to Roosevelt Island on Labor Day.  Firefighters, who received the first call at 5:57 p.m., rolled onto the Island at 6:15.  By 6:20, flames were shooting from the top of the structure, and by 6:45, Fire Department personnel had apparently decided on a strategy of containment over attempts to extinguish the fire.  By 7:00, thick black smoke was being blown over Manhattan's East Side.

It took nearly three hours to bring the blaze fully under control.  The building was still being hosed down Tuesday morning.

Wood structures inside the building fed the fire, but it appeared to be made worse by stabilization measures taken after a 1982 fire that destroyed the building's ornate dome.  A metal cap and sealed windows and doors apparently turned the building into a huge chimney much like a steel smelter or trash incinerator.  Demolition and excavation debris on the south and west sides of the building also made access difficult for firefighters.

The cause of the blaze is being investigated.  A single access door, normally locked, was open when firefighters arrived.

In two centuries, the Octagon has attracted attention as an insane asylum and as a work of architecture by Alexander Jackson Davis.  Charles Dickens visited it in 1842 and wrote, in American Notes, "I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection of this charity...  everything had a lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful."

In this century, E.L.  Doctorow used the setting in his novel, Waterworks: "They kept these people not in rooms but in what seemed to be a succession of hall wards with high clerestory windows and vaulted ceilings finished in ochred brick.  The great volumes of the space above the inmates mixed their screeches and shouts and cries of despair into a cathedral of prayerful sound." Speaking of the building, he told a WIRE reporter, "It says something in its ruined state that appeals to me.  It takes us to our earlier history more than total restoration.  It's the hope of finding the ceremony of our lives with the echoing sorrows of mad people."

This year, the architectural firm of Becker and Becker has proposed using the Octagon as the centerpiece of a six-story apartment building that would sit on the footprint of the wings that were attached to the Octagon as part of the hospital.

Late Thursday, RIOC President Robert Ryan said decisions would be made about how to deal with the results of the fire after NYFD officials had released the site.