The true northerner., 1885-05-14
BURIED IN RUINS.
Collapse of a Portion of a Huge
Manufacturing Building in
Brooklyn, NJ. Y.
Flames Spring Up from the Wreck
and Destroy Number OF
Human Lives.

brooklyn IN. " telegram.
Shortly after O'Clock this morning there
was n crash at SO Atlantic avenue, Brooklyn,
and people on looking up from the street
saw that the roof of the building had fallen
in and that portion of the walls had fallen.
They could hear the screams of people in
jured, and il seemed but a moment when q
volume of smoke rolled up, showing that
the building had taken fire. Hundreds Of
people-men, women and girls-were at
work ut the various branches Of
business carried on in the building,
which covers considerable ground,
having three wings. and which ex-
tends through from Atlantic avenue to State
street AS soon as the crush was heard of
the falling roof hundreds of those employed
in the building fed or endeavored to mako
their way out by every avenue of escape
which they were familiar with, and some
who were the last to reach the street ap-
peared with begrimed faces and blood
streaming from wounds they received from
falling timbers.
The excitement in the neighborhood be-
came very great, and in short time
the wives OF the men who were known
to be working in the building and the
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 large num-
Der of the police force had to be called in
TO 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
Works, 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 the roofs of the
adjoining tenement houses
The building was occupied by twenty
small manufacturers. and there were about
500 men and women employed therein. 1t
was five stories high. and erected twenty
seven years ago, the woodwork being like
tinder When the fremen arrived they
found many Of the young women at the
windows, screaming wildly for help. Their
retreat had been cut of. and the fremen
quickly ran up the ladders; bat the girls
were hemmed in and some fell
back into the flames before help could
reach them. The infammable char
acter of the building hindered the efforts
of the firemen- 1t was ascerta.ned that the
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 Atlantic
avenue had settled; workmen were screw
ing it up with jackssthe middle jack had
been screwed up too high, and is 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 question which can not be
solved. Some of them were seen Shrek
ing wildly upon the iron fire-escape of the
fourth floor, where the tin factory was To-
Gated. The flames seemed to leap from
floor to floor and building to building with
q celebrity that battles 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 ruins gave terror to the spec
tacle, and the general excitement grew int
panic when it was reported that several
employees had been burned and crushed to
death in the ruins.
The walls fell rapidly, and two hours aft
er the fire had broken out nothing but a
few fragments of wall indicated that
places where these fragments bulged out
ward and threatened to fall the fremen di-
rected 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 extinguished, and several engines had
left, but steam and smoke still rolled in
heavy volumes from the charred and smol-
dering ruins.
The excitement around the scene of the
confagration was intense, and there were a
hundred anxious people looking for miss
ing relatives and friends employed in the
building. What human life is lost viii
never be known until the fremen have
thoroughly searched the ruins, but there
seems to be little doubt on oil sides that
considerable number have perished.
Pour 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-five are mise
ing.
Walter w. Marcus. n workman in one of
the factories, who was standing at the cor
ner of Hicks street at the time of tho con-
fagraton, stated that he glanced at one Of
the upper windows and noticed puff OF
smoke coming from it. and in less than a
minute it seemed as If fire and smoke were
leaping from every door and window. II
was caught in that place last September,
said he, when part of the building was
burned. AS 1 was sleeping on the third
floor / was awakened by shouts on the
street, and got down stairs just in time to
save roasting There was nothing in or
about the place to check fire; no hose or
extinguisher or fire. escape"