Apartment Fire

Seven Families Saved From East Side Blaze

Firemen responding quickly to a blaze in an apartment at 16 E. 63d St. early yesterday, rapidly contained the fire. Before they were through they had evacuated seven families, mostly in their nightclothes and an actress. The fire, of unknown cause, broke out in the 3-1/2 room quarters of actress Edith Sedgewych, 24, and engulfed her apartment. Miss Sedgewych suffering smoke poisoning was taken to Hospital.

New York, Daily News

Edie Sedgwick Apartment Fire

Edie Sedgwick Apartment Fire: color photo of Edie Sedgwick in a floral bikini and with her left hand heavily bandaged and holding a rose

Me, in a bikini, and a bandaged hand from my apartment fire.

When Edie set her apartment on fire, she was in one of my dresses.

Betsey Johnson

All of the clothes at Paraphernalia were experimental. Always changing. It had nothing to do with the customer. I had everything to do with the time, the moment. We were giving the customer something brand new, something that she didn’t have a clue she wanted. It was all very spaceship. “What would you wear on the moon?” That was the big question of the Sixties. Everybody felt real future, real positive, real up, optimistic, and the whole Timothy Leary drug trip. Edie and Andy were just the ultimate, you know. Edie and the rock ‘n’ roll groups were it. The Stones, the Beatles were where you could hear it. John Cale from the Velvet Underground. Paraphernalia was where you could buy it. Edie was my first fitting model. Very boyish, in fact, she was the very beginning of the whole unisex trip.

Betsey Johnson

Edie Sedgwick Apartment Fire: black-and-white newspaper photograph of George Gekrish carrying Edith Sedgewych (Edie Sedgwick) out from apartment fire

Fire Chief George Gekrish carries Edith Sedgewych from flaming building. She suffered smoke poisoning.

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Creative Commons Attribution, 2016