Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1910 — NEW YORK SHAKEN BY TERRIFIC BLAST [ARTICLE]

NEW YORK SHAKEN BY TERRIFIC BLAST

Twelve People Killed ty Elplosion in Power House Twelve people were killed in New York city, two of them women, and thirty were injured In a double explosion of gas and dynamite in the new electric power house of the New York Central railroad. The property damage is estimated at >500,000. The following dead have been identified:Mary D. Polk, 104 East Fortieth street; Frank Kelly, Central office detective; James Ryan, clerk; Patrick Jordan, laborer; Thomas Stagg, watchman in the power house; C. McMorrow; E. B. Livermore. There was much excitement in the large hotels in the vicinity of the Grand Central station, as the force of the explosion rattled the windows. Traffic on the New York Central road was delayed by the explosion. The blast picked up a north-bound trolley car, lifted it in the air and sent it crashing down upon an automobile which was passing on the other side of the street. Four of the passengers were killed and everyone in the car injured. What became of the chauffeur or the ocupants of the wrecked automobile known. A dead man was found on the sidewalk near by and the police believe him to have been the chauffeur. ' The house of fire company No. 8, Lexington avenue and Fifty-first street, is practically demolished. The walls ape cracked and the engines put out of commission. Battalion Chief Duffy and the other firemen were hurled to the floor and received injuries. The shock broke every window in the babies’ hospital in Lexington avenue and several in f ants were cut by showering glass. The building in which the explosion occurred immediately took fire after the accident. In tbe Bible Teachers’ Training school on Lexington avenue directly opposite the power house, 125 men and women who were on their way to breakfast were thrown to the floor by the blast. Many were injured and several were taken to hospitals. All the windows in the building were blown in and the ceilings fell. Just what caused the double explosion may probably never be known. Fortunately for the thousands of commuters on the New York Central lines, the force of the blasts were directed in another direction from the railroad tracks, otherwise the loaded incoming trains might have been wrecked.