The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-12-26
Polytechnic Hospital and Sohmer's
Piano Factory Reduced
to Ashes.
One Hundred People Also Made Homes
less by the Burning Of Tene.
ment Property.


nearly a million dollars and rendered 100
people homeless
Four buildings. including Sohmer's
piano warehouse and the New York Poly
clinic Hospit al, were destroyed. The de-
stroy ed buildings also include large five
story brick tenement at 200 East Thirty
third street and large fve-story brick
factory building.
The piano warehouse occupied fourth
of the block and the Polytechnic Hospital
was a four-story building with front OF
fifty feet on East Thirty third street. The
fire began at 7:05 o'clock on the second
floor of Pinare's snuff factory at 221 East
Thirty-fourth street. When the fire en-
gines arrived at the scene the fire had al
ready communicated with the piano
factory adjoining on the east. Several
large streams of water were poured on the
burning building, but without apparent
effect, and third and fourth alarms for
engines were sent in. The police, under
Sergeant Pagan, aroused the sleeping
tenants of the building on the west OF the
burning factory.
There was panic when the tenants
found smoke pouring into their rooms,
and in the extreme decentralization which
followed several of the tenants escaped
narrowly with their lives.
With the aid of the police eighteen fami-
lies, consisting of seventy-five people, we're
dragged and carried from the building.
Sturdy policemen, carrying small chill
dren IN their arms, were cheered by the
large crowd as they brought them down
the stairs and out on the street. Several
girls, only partly dressed, opened the win
dows of their rooms on the fifth floor and
stepped on the fre-escape in front of the
building. One of them was about to jump
to the street, when policeman who had
entered the room dragged her back and
carried her to the street.
At s o'clock the piano warehouse owned
by Sebastian Sohmer was on fire from cell
lar to roof. Fifteen minutes later the roof
fell in. The fire had by that time assumed
such enormous proportions that the hos
pital in the rear of the warehouse and
fronting on Thirty-fourth street was in
imminent danger. There were fifty-eight
patients in the building, and when they
were advised there was another panic.
Patients whose condition had bee very
serious leaped from their beds and ran
toward the stairs. The nurses and en-
pIoyes of the hospital assured them that
there was no danger, and the panic was
temporarily quelled. One by one the pa
tients were carried from the building until
all of them had been removed. hastily
improvised stretchers bore the patients to
nearby hotel, where they were placed in
beds. /.
John Gill, an attendant in the hospital,
was overcome by the effects of the smoke.
He was carried to the hotel, where he re-
covered short time afterward. The
flames communicated to the roof of the
hospital at $50, and in several minutes
the upper floor was belching forth huge
waves of smoke and fire. The fremen
who were inside the building were or
dered to leave the structure, and several
lines of hose poured water on it from the
elevated railroad tracks on Thirty-fourt
street. The tenemenl-house at 209, from
which the tenants had been rescued by
the policemen, had been considered sale
by the firemen until $3.50, when a strong
wind blew the flames over it. In a short
time the roof caught the heat of the
factory fire and ten minutes afterward the
interior was ablaze. Several streams of
water had no apparent effect, and in a
short time the roof fell in with deafen-
ing roar. The front wall of the fifth floor
caught short time afterward, and then
the firemen turned their attention to the
tenement ad joining west. The roof of the
building at I'll iel! in and carried with it
to the ground the four floors. The piano
warehouse wall, which was almost solid
and nearly 200 feet long and 60 feet high,
collapsed shortly afterward.
A part of it fell on the roof of the East
River Hotel at 223 and damaged the
building to great extent. The hremen
poured several streams of water on the
hotel, but fire started in the rear Of the
top floor shortly after the wall fell upon
it, The fire IN the factory, warehouse and
tenement was under control at 10 clock,
but only after everything in them had
been destroyed. Nothing remained OF the
three buildings except parts of the outer
walls ana blazing mass of lumber and
woodwork in the interiors. The building
in which the FIRE started was occupied on
the first, second and third floors by ]. f.
Kaldenberg, a manufacturer of pipes and
smokers materials. The loss is about
$50 900.
Plnare's snuff factory occupied part of
the second floor and the fourth and fifth
floors of the building. The loss to the
snuff manufacturer will not be less than
$50, 900. The loss to the building will
amount to nearly $500, 900, partly covered
by insurance.
The Sohmer piano warehouse Is total
loss. The loss to Sohmer in stock and ma
chinery will reach $500, 900 or $500, 600, and
loss OH building 5000, 0O0 The tenement at
200 East Thirty-third street was damaged
to the extent of SIS. 900. The damage done
to furniture and personal property OF the
tenants is several thousand dollars.
The damage done to the Polytechnic Hos
pital will amount to at least $75, 900. There
were thirty children among the patients
and ell of them were carried out In the
arms of firemsn.
The fires in all the buildings were under
control at IL o'clock. Besides rendering
homeless a hundred people, the fire has
thrown out Of work nearly 500 employees