The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-08-24

in the hands OF the eotor nOe A@eW @naH
Friday at noon.
Our Outrageous Building and Fire
Laws-A Burning Question.
While the firemen and laborers were
digging horrible wrecks of human
ity from the ruins of the Park Place
calamity, the walls OF a new building
at the corner OF Erie and Fourth
streets, this city, gave way, and top
pied to the ground, filling the street
with wreckage.
A woman who was about to pass
the building, saw the wall totter and
fled across the street. She was
hardly out of harms way when the
crash came. She was not struck, but
she was Frustrated by the awful
shock of this vision of sudden death.
Just a short while before the ''ac-
cident" great crowds of people passed
beneath the wall on their way to and
from st. Mary's Church. AT all
times during week days there are a
good many pedestrians about this
part OF the street.
The building was intended for
human habitation. 1t vas constructed
for a five story double fiat house. 1t
was nearly finished. and, in a few
weeks more. it would have been ten
anted by from seventy-ive to a hun
dred people.
Now. we do not wish to inveigh
against Building Inspector James G.
Clarke. 1t is his misfortune, and not
his fault, that he is a dentist and not
a practical builder, and consequently
can never be anything but a dummy,
a lay figure in his present office. But
we do condemn and hold up to public
depreciation the politicians who rem
der one OF the most important of u
public posts ridiculous by placing so
wholly unsuitable a man in it. We
earnestly condemn the conduct of the
last Legislature, too, in refusing to
pass a bill which was introduced, pre-
viding that Building Inspectors in
cities must be practical builders or
carpenters. 1t seems ~grotesque that
such a law should be necessary, but it
is.
But even II Mr.. Clark were a prac-
teal builder he could not do much.
The laws relative to the erection of
buildings are most defective in this
State Practically builders ean-and
do-do as they please, and the city is
full of structures which are no better
than fire traps. 1t is impossible to
get our aldermen to pass a fire escape
ordinance or a fire limit ordinance,
and thousands of lives are in daily
peril through the reckless indiffer-
ence of builders and property owners.
Only a week or two ago, a frame
annex to an iron foundry was COM
pIeted within ten feet Of the Weldon
Building, the largest Office building in
the city. This fire box is the work of
one of the richest men in Jersey City.
1t is in direct contact with an old
frame building which would burn
like finder and which adjoins the
Weldon Building along n entire
face.
The Weldon Building is not fire
proof and does not pretend to be- 1t
is, of course. internally safe because
it contains no special elements of dam
ger, and 1t is carefully supervised
But 1t is an outrage on its owners its
tenants and its underwriters that ex-
traneous dangers should be heaped
up against it. 1t contains owe two
hundred offices, and in the busy
hours of the day, almost
a thousand people swarm
in it like bees in a hive. Now there
is not a fire escape to this building
from one end to the other. There are
only two steep and narrow s~tairways.
There is no refuge by way of the roof
for it is forty feet higher than the ad-
joining building. The upper floors,
too, are beyond the reach of ladders.
Here would be a nice state OF things
if the finder box next door started a
eonflagration-
There is no law to compel the at
tachment Of fire escapes to this build
ing, and it would cost several thou
sand dollars to do it. SO it is not done,
and indeed it is not worse in this re-
spect than any other Office building in
the citv-the Fuller or the Fleming
for instance.
Meantime, if the fate of the old
World building, which was burned
in Christmas week 1881, should over
take the Weldon, or any Of these
buildings the fearful loss of life of
'tillt 1fallentabie accident would