Overnight, 6-alarm fire destroys press box at Suffolk Downs

The Boston Fire Department said it still was trying to figure out what caused a six-alarm fire late Monday night that destroyed the old press box at Suffolk Downs.

“The fire itself was contained to the press box on the roof of the grandstand,” Chip Tuttle, the track’s chief operating officer, told Horse Racing Nation on Tuesday morning. “The press box, the television studio and control room, stewards stand, placing judges, all the operations that were up there are totally destroyed.”

Although most of the 87-year-old grandstand was saved, the loss of the old workplace for generations of turf writers and broadcasters left an emotional wound with the track’s longtime publicist.

“It’s just heartbreaking,” said Jessica Paquette, who worked at Suffolk Downs for 13 years and became its director of communications and vice president of marketing. “That was my favorite place in the entire racetrack. Possibly in the entire world. I spent more hours in that press box than I think I spent anywhere I lived.”

A department spokesperson said no one was hurt in the fire that was first reported as “a heavy smoke condition” Monday at 10 p.m. EDT.

“It took a while to find the fire, because it’s a huge building,” public information officer Brian Alkins said Tuesday morning. “The whole building was filled with smoke when they determined it was on the roof. We just went into attack mode. They knocked down the major fire in about 2 1/2 hours, but the (press box) wasn’t stable enough for us to go inside.”

When the flames were at their most intense after 11 p.m., firefighters were ordered off the roof for their own safety, Alkin said. Then more than 100 of them to use pipes in ladders to get water on the fire.

“We basically fought the fire from the outside,” Alkin said. “We didn’t know how bad the fire burned on the inside and how long it had been burning. We’re still hitting hot spots since the fire has damaged so much. We don’t want to put people in harm’s way in an abandoned building.”

Restricted access to water did not help the situation that led to a sixth alarm by midnight.

“There weren’t any hydrants in the area,” Alkins said. “We had to use a lot of lines, thousands and thousands of lines, and a supplementary pump to get water to the scene. That was a major issue.”

Eventually, firefighters were called to the East Boston track from seven neighboring departments. Most of the fire was put out by 1:21 a.m. EDT.

It has been nearly three years since Suffolk Downs hosted its last race, but it has remained active as a simulcast wagering venue and has been open to daytime sightseers who want to see where horses used to run.

“We’re waiting to hear from Boston Fire when they think it’s safe for us to get back into the grandstand side of the building,” Tuttle said. “Our simulcast operations are restricted to the first and second floor of the clubhouse, which is a separate building. We’re hopeful to resume on-site simulcasting. We just don’t know when yet.”

While the nerve center for simulcasting continued to be housed in the press box, artifacts from its original days as a workplace for racing media were removed two years ago.

“I didn’t want them to get lost,” said Paquette, who has them safely in her house north of Boston. “There were some old photos from the ’40s and ’50s through the ’80s and ’90s that were very important to me. I was also president of the New England Turf Writers Association, so to me it was very important to preserve as much history as possible.”

Tuttle hopes to get the simulcast operation temporarily rebuilt in another part of the grandstand. While he was at the mercy of the fire department to allow people and electrical power back inside, he hoped wagering at Suffolk Downs could resume in time for Belmont Stakes day on June 11.

Even before the fire, Suffolk Downs was on borrowed time as a betting facility. The area is being redeveloped by new owners, the HYM Investment Group, who started building a life-science facility during the winter in what used to be the barn area.

“That’s going to be mixed use with residential, retail and lab space,” Tuttle said. “Our plan has been to move our simulcasting and sportsbook – if we’re fortunate enough to be licensed for sports betting – to a Revere (Mass.) location. We’re operating in the grandstand under a lease with the current property owner.”

The fire served as a punctuation mark for lingering feelings about the June 2019 closing of a racetrack that had hosted the likes of Seabiscuit, Whirlaway and Cigar.

“It’s just sad,” Paquette said, “seeing these old tracks go the way of the dinosaurs.”