Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1885 — BURIED IN RUINS. [ARTICLE]

BURIED IN RUINS.

Collapse of a Portion of a Huge Manufacturing Building in Brooklyn, N. Y. Flames Spring Up from tlie Wreck and Destroy a Number of ‘ Human Lives. [Brooklyn (N.‘Y.) telegram. 1 Shortly after 9 o’clock this morning there was a crash at 55 Atlantic avenue, Brooklyn, and people on looking up from the street, saw that the roof, of the building had. fallen in and that a portion, of the walls had fallen. They could hear the screams of people injured, and it seemed but a moment when a volume of smoke rolled up, showing that the building had taken fire. Hundreds of people—men, women and; girls—were at work at the various branches of business carried on in the building, which covers considerable ground, having three wings, and which extends through from Atlantic avenue to State street. As soon as the crush was heard of the falling roof hfindreds of those employed in the building fled or endeavored to make their way out by every-avenue of escape which they were familiar with, and some who were the last to reach the street appeared with begrimed faces and blood streaming from wounds they received from falling timbers. The excitement in the neighborhood became very great, and in a short time the wives of the men who were known to be working in the building and tie parents of the girls who were employed there blocked the streets and wrung their hands and wept. ’ Three alarms of fire were sent out, and the services of a large number of the police force had to be called into Requisition to keep the crowd of people out of the way of danger. It was reported at first that about one hundred girls, who were employed in the Milo Hynes Button W orks, which was on the top floor where the roof fell in, were killed, but there are other reports that most of the girls made their escape by climbing on tho roofs of the adjoining tenement houses. The building was occupied by twenty small manufacturers, and there were about 500 men and women employed therein. It was five stories high, and erected twentyseven years ago, tho woodwoik being like tinder. When the firemen arrived they found many of the young women at the windows, screaming wildly for help. Their retreat had been cut off, and the firemeu quickly ran up the ladders; but the girls were hemmed in and some fell back into the flames before help could reach them. The inflammable character of the building hindered the efforts of the firemen. It was ascertained that tho engineer of the factory, Daniel J. Lowry, was one of the victims. He was killed by the falling of the west wall of the middle wing on Atlantic avenue. The cause of the fire was the overturning of the boilers of a soap factory on the second floor. The west wall of the middle wing on At"antic avenue had settled; workmen were screwing it up with jacks; the middle jack had been screwed up too high, and it was lowered, when the whole weight of the wall came upon the two jacks at the end and fell with a crash.

In the different manufacturing places in the buildings there were 700 people. In the New York Tin Company’s employ there were thirty or forty girls, and whether all' escaped is a question which can not he solved. Some of them were seen shrieking wildly upon the iron fire-escape of the fourth floor, where the tin factory was located. The flames seemed to leap from floor to floor and building to bnilding with a celerity that baffles description. . The fire now rapidly extended to the building that fronted on State street, and the buildings went to pieces like houses of cards. The crash of falling walls and floors, the vast clouds of smoke, dust, and steam, the spires of flame that shot, from the crumbling rains gave terror to the spectacle, and the generjysxcitemeift grew into a panic when it was~fepoited that several employes had been burned and crushed to death in the ruins. The walls fell rapidly, and two hours after the fire had broken out nothing but a few fragments of wall indicated that a building had formerly stood there. In places where these fragments buiged outward and threatened to fall the firemen directed streams of water against them at short range, and .-crumbled them down brick by brick. By noon the fire on the State street side was extingnishod, and several engines had left, but steam and smoke still rolled in heavy volumes from the charred and smoldering ruins. The excitement around the scene of the conflagration was intense, and there were hundred anxious people looking for missing relatives and friends employed in the building. What human life is lost will never be knowfl until the firemen have thoroughly searched the ruins, but there seems to be little doubt on all sides that a considerable number have perished. P Four dead and charred bodies have been taken from the ruins. A dozen or more persons were injured, some of them very seriously, and about twenty-live are missing. Walter W, Marcus, a workman in one of the factories, who was standing at the corner of Hicks street at the time of tho conflagration, stated that he glanced at one of the upper windows and noticed a puff of smoke coming from it, and in less than a minute it seemed as if lire aud smoke were leaping from every door and window. “P was caught in that place last September,” said he, “when part of the building was burned. As I was sleeping on the third floor I was awakened bv shouts on the street, and got down stairs just in time to save a roasting. There was nothing in or about the place to check a fire; no hose or extinguisher or fire-escape.”