People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1894 — ESCAPE CUT OFF. [ARTICLE]

ESCAPE CUT OFF.

Inmates Caught in a New York Tenement Fire. Seven of Them Lose Their Lives and Ona Makes a Probably Fatal Leap from a Window—Three Other* Are Rescued. New York, Oct 31.—Flames flashed with marvelous rapidity from the cellar to the roof of the five-story single tenement house, of 1G West Thirty-sec-ond street, early Tuesday morning. Smoke filled the entire house and seven of the tenants were suffocated in their rooms. In Roosevelt hospital a victim of the fire, a woman who tried in vain to save her life by jumping from a third-story window, is Ijing fatally hurt. The dead were all removed to the West Thirty-seventh street station house. Their names are: Annie Applebat, 22 years old; George Friedman. 4 years old; Levi Friedman, 3 years old; Mrs. Margaret Killian, 70 years old; Jacob Killian, 40 years old. son of Mrs. Killian; George Levy, 20 years old, grandson of Mrs. Killian: Mrs. Lena Mitchell. 24 years old, a cousin of Mrs. Lena Friedman. Injured: Mrs. Lena Friedman. 28 years old, leaped from a window, horribly burned about the face, neck, arms and body and covered with contusions, will probably die. The fire was discovered at 3 o’clock by passers-by. When a policeman came up the door of the tenement was opened and on the inside the fire glowed «iike a torch. He could see that the stairway was being rapidly burned away. Volumes of smoke were rolling from the front windows. Policeman Powers and the firemen shouted to the people on the fire escapes not to jump. The firemen spread a net to catch any who should attempt it. The flames had not gained access to any of the front rooms, but the smoke was stifling. Standing on a dry goods box, Policeman Powers received the fear-stricken tenants and passed them down from the first floor escape to other policemen. The escape of the Fondiller family was very narrow. Adolph, aged 17, was the first to awaken. He was nearly stifled with the smoke, but crawling to a window opened it and then aroused the rest of the family. The other families on the upper floors in the front portion of the building were aroused by the smoke or the shouts of people in the street below. Mrs. Jacob Smith rushed out on the fire escape on the first floor and jumped to the sidewalk. She escaped with a few slight bruises and her husband, who followed her, was equally fortunate. Meantime engines had been flooding the house with water, and in an hour the fire had been extinguished and the house cleared of smoke. Then Fire Chief Purroy and Capt. Farrell made a tour of the rooms. The two Friedman children, George and Levi, were found lying dead, side by side, in their little bed, just as they had fallen asleep the night before. Not a hair of their heads had been singed and indeed none of the bodies had been touched by the flames. In a bedroom in the Friedman apartment were the bodies of Lena Mitchell, a cousin of Mrs. Friedman, and Annie Applebat, who boarded with the family. Neither of the girls had moved, apparently, and their faces looked peaceful enough. Death had evidently come to them painlessly. On the floor above Jacob Killian was found lying doubled up alongside of his bed, as if he had made an effort to crawl to a window and had been overcome in the act. George Lovey had also managed to get out of bed and his body was found on the floor. Aged Mrs. Killian had died just as she slept and a peaceful smile rested on the furrowed face. The fire on the second and third floors had spread through the central rooms, leaving the extreme front and rear rooms untouched. The cellar was gutted. The remains of the dead were promptly removed to the Thirty-sev-enth street police station. The damage to the building is estimated at not more than S3OO. The loss of the tenants, however, will swell the total damage to a much larger figure.