Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-11-25
~U III L = Il Y 7. .
BURNED IN A HOTEL
Fatal Fire Overlooking the Scene of
Yesterdays Great Game.
PRESIDENT MCLEOD GIVES TESTIMONY.
A Passenger Train Robbed by Three
Men.
THE MONETARY CONFERENCE
Burning of a Hotel From Which students
Saw the Great Game.


Saw the Great Game.
NEW YORK, Nov 25-when the last echoes
of Yale's triumphant yell had died out on tie
Manhattan field and slumber had come to the
tired neighborhood at last with the small
hours of the morning there arose from
the slope of 'deadhead HILL overlooking the
scene Of the great struggle. the glare OF fire
that grew redder until. with clangor of fire
bells and racing engines, the neighborhood
arose in haste and bestirred itself to fight
1t was tremendous bonfire and q costly one
The st. Nicholas Park Hotel was burned to the
ground and girl who slept upstairs lost her
life. She was Rosie Raubenbuehler, a servant
of the family. The five members of the family
escaped by the narrowest chances.
The St Nicholas Park Hotel stands on the
slope of 155th street near the top. overlooking
Manhattan field 1t has been a well-known
picnic ground for years. The fnct that it is APP
preached by many wearisome steps did
not discourage those who went there
10 its dancing platform every summer night
The people on the top of the hill did not like it
very much, bnr the proprictors, the Grass Muck
brothers. who held under mortgage to Ehret,
the brewer, who had spent The earning of five
years in improving the place and found it ut
last beginning to paw.
All day yesterday it was crowded with stu
dents, whose wells made the bluff ring with
queer echoes 1t is not unlikely that it was
their hot enthusiasm that set it fire Ii
fed upon hundreds of cigarettes that were tossed
here md there about the old frame building.
That one OF them had fallen into a crevice,
where it smoldered undiscovered until it had
gained fatal headway, is the most reasonable
explanation of the fire.
1t was 215 O'Clock am when Policeman
Kiowl, patrolling the hill. saw smoke and n
CLEAN of Ere playing about the base Of the
hotel on the slope. He climbed the stairs and
shouted with all his might But there had been
much shouting that day and night nobody
heard him, OF if anybody did they paid atten-
ton. When in front Of the hotel he saw that
it was on fire. Already the door was blocked
He could not get into the house, but
saw light shining through one of the
third-story windows. krowl picked up
stone and threw it through the window.
That did it. Behind the window upstairs Mrs.
Charlotte Grassmuck. the aged mother of the
two hotel keepers, was counting up the receipts
of the day. She had just stacked up $500.
crash went the window and she heard the po-
liceman veil fire.
She seized old shawl and threw 1t over her
head. forgetting all about the money, and ran.
She ran into her girls room next door. think
ing only of them and of her sons. and shrieked
with all her might. They all awoke at once aud
rushed around to secure each other. When
they were all together, the two brothers, their
mother. their sister Bertha and their niece.
Olga WIller, who is only fifteen. they still
missed the servant girl
Hurry Rosie, shouted one Of the men 1.-The
house is on fire."
I'm coming in q minute" came the girls
reply from inside.
''Yes, but be quick" he shouted They had
not a moment to spare by that time. As the
family climbed the bald rock with their bare
and bleeding feet catching at the
stray bushes here and there back of
the house to help them up the
steep hill the flames, suddenly driven back
| through the cellar windows. reached
after them and caught their clothes
| They got away, but bv the narrowest
of chances, and reached the top of the hill
The last they saw of their house from
the rear the Lighted window in Rosie's
room. Next they 1t from in front they
walked barefooted in their thin night clothes
along the brow of the bluff to the
viaduct and down it all the way
front of their late home it afforded them the
last touch CT comfort by sending up hot blast
from below to take the chill out Of their
bones.
Down on the avenue Maj. Sauer opened his
hotel for them and took them in. They slowly
thawed ont while watching the firemen fight to
keep the shower of sparks that few down the
hill from setting FIRE to Sauer's Hotel
Engines had come to the burning building.
Fireman Lorenzo had made effort to ascer-
tain Il tine girl Rosie was still in the house by
climbing up one of Lis scaling ladders and shout
ing her name in the smoke-flled hallway.
Receiving no answer he dropped to the ground
again. Three hours later the same fire.
man. when rakinG the ruins over with
| the crew of engine No. SO, came upon
her blackened body in the wreck Of
the stairs. Her legs were burned off
and she was unacceptable. She had CROPPED
her way toward the stairs and been over
come there by the smoke, instead of drop
ping from the window to the ground.
In the fire persisted also two pets OF
the Grassmucks, whose loss they mourn,
next to Kosie's, greater than all their
money and property. One Of them was Topsy
black and white spitz that had been attached
to the building for fifteen years.
The other was pet parrot which the Grass
mueks had owned seventeen years. 1t spoke
both German and English with much feeling
and sense. The hotel was worth S25, 600