The Rock Island Argus., 1885-04-15
" "SHODDY" BUILDINGS.
TERRIBLE CRASH OF EIGHT FIVE.
STORY DEATH-TRAPS.
Many Workmen Injured and Several Miss.
ing Cause of the wreck-FalI of a
Mill Stack-Close Call for
Dozen Firemen,

New YORK, April l5-An appalling dis
aster occurred uptown Monday afternoon
Shortly before 3 O'clock large five-story
tenement building on Sixty-second street.
between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, not
quite finished, suddenly collapsed without
any previous warning, and buried an un-
known number of workmen in its ruins
The scene just before the catastrophe was
one of busy life. The row of buildings ex
tended in straight line on Sixty-secoud
street for 200 feet, reaching from very near
Tenth avenue more than half way to
Eleventh avenue, and as they stood there,
eighty feet high, they appeared to be as Sc
cure ana solid as the rocks upon which they
were built. few persons stood looking at
the workmen when loud report broke upon
the air, and the onlookers saw the east end
of the row sag little
A few Mortified shrieks a thunderinp
sound, and the mass of bricks and wood in
tended to form the habitation Of hundreds
Of Lying souls, sank toward the west and
settled upon the ground, huge embank-
ment of masonry. The conclusion made
the earth tremble, and from the pile of
ruined houses enveloped in clouds of rising
dust arose cries, agonizing and in all de-
grees of loudness, some seeming to come
from the bowels of the earth. A vast crowd
soon collected and the work of rescuing the
imprisoned workmen Immediately begun.
tIremen and insurance reserves, reinforced
by hundreds of volunteers, were soon at
work rescuing the unfortunates buried in
the debris, and by 3 o'clock Tuesday morn
ing they had taken out the following: OFT
Arndt, slight injnries Robert Bonderick,
slightly injured; Henry Brandt, slight in
juries; John Cavanaugh, slightly in
jured; John Dexter slightly hurt;
John Flynn, slightly hurt; Thomas
Flynn, scalp wound Thomas King,
hand and arm burned by solder; John
Laverty, scalp wound and back hurt; John
Mclnerney, leg and thigh broken, injuHes
very serious; Thomas Nolan, slightly hurt;
George SaverbrIe, side injured Jacob
Schucht, confusion of side and internal in
juries; James Trainor, foot crushed; Frank
Ward, back sprained; Louis Walters, dug
out of ruins after six hours, insensible
badly crushed; Adam Ziverman, head and
thigh badly bruised.
Several were missing and believed to be
in the rooms, dead
Contractor Buddensick, the builder of
the collapsed structure, is probably the
largest builder in the city of cheap blocks of
houses He has had constant collisions with
the building department, but he has always
come out ahead, or nearly always In all
the efforts at rescue he took no part. He
was in the street in front of the build
ings when they fell, and one of his legs was
hurt by flying brick.
Buddensick has for years been known as a
builder with cheap material and an employer
of cheap labor. One of his methods has
been for many years never to build under
his own name, and the consequent difficulty
Of pinning down the responsibility for his
bad work was pointed out by the health
commissioners during the session of the late
tenemont-house committee as one of the an
noying obstacles encountered in pushing
sanitary work in the city.
With daylight Tuesday morning it was
enough To see the cause of terrible accident.
The buildings fell because there was simply
uothing to hold them together. Buddensick,
the builder of the tenements that fell, has
constructed block after block in the neigh
borhood of the accident. Philip Hausman,
builder, said: "The houses fell
bCShuoS bhoy N0Ao AOtOoHs AHeJ NeT6 UullI
of refuse Look at the bricks that were be-
ing used. They are not bricks, but halves
alid quarters and chunks of bricks, poorly
burnt, the miserable offal of a brick yard,
This stuff is what the walls were being con-
structed of; but, though that is enough to
condemn any building if the public safety
is considered at all, it is by no means tie
worst feature of the Ease. You SEQ these brick
bats are almost clean, there is no mortar
on them at all The stuff used in layius
the bricks in the wall was simply wet dirt.
1t is called loan, end is the clayey stuff ex-
cavated from the cellars after the rocks
were blasted for the foundations This loan
| is fine dirt Sand and lime make mortar A
| fourth part of the lime required TO make
good mortar with will mix this loan, and
while wet it is somewhat sticky. So soon as
it gets dry it does not hold at all That is
what allied these buildings. The walls were
made of bricli-bats, stuck together with dry
| dirt
All the builders and masons present cor
| roborated these statements. Said one
| This loan, when wet, is mud when dry, il
| is powder, and thousands of tenement
| houses and flats for the poor people are be
ing put up in this city with just this stuff
Ali these houses that you see about here art
built of rotten bricks and mud
Louis Walker. one of the injured, died al
Roosevelt hospital Tuesday. The police
have arrested Buddensick the contractor