Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-12-26
A STIFF CHRISTMAS BLAZE
Hits New Workers for a Round
Million.
BIG PIANO CONCERN BURNS
With Total Loss of -Four Hundred Thousand
Dollars.
POLYTECHNIC HOSPITAL IN THE BLhZe
Inmates of All of the Buildings Were Res
cued Without Single Fatality
Caldenberg's Pipe Factory
In the Ruins.
BIG PIANO CONCERN BURNS
POLYTECHNIC HOSPITAL IN THE BLhZE

New York Dec. 25.-An early Christmas
morning fire on East Thirtythird street,
destroyed property valued at nearly
million dollars and rendered 100 people
homeless
Four buildings, including Sohmers Pi-
ano warehouse and the New York Poly
technic hospital were destroyed.
The destroyed buildings also include
large five-story brick tenement at 2O9
East Thirty-third street and large five
story brick factory building.
The piano warehouse occupied fourth
of the block and the Polytechnic was a
four-story building with a front of fifty
feet on East Thirty-third street.
The fire began at 7:o5 o'clock on the
= second floor of Pilares snuff factory at
211 East Thirty-fourth street. When the
fire engines arrived on the scene the fire
had already communicated with the piano
factory adjoining on the east. Several
large streams of water were poured in the
burning building, but without apparent
effect, and third and fourth alarms for
engines were sent in.
The police, under Sergeant Fagan,
aroused the sleeping tenants of the build
ing on the west of the burning factory.
There was a panic when the tenants
found smoke pouring in their rooms, and
in the excitement and Generalization
which followed several Of the tenants es-
capped narrowly with their lives.
With the aid of the police eighteen
families, consisting of seventy-five peo-
ple were dragged and carried from the
building.
Several girls only partially dressed, op-
ened the windows of their rooms on the
fifth floor and stepped on the fire es-
cape in front of the building One OF
them was about to jump to the street
when a policeman, who had entered the
room, dragged her back and carried her
to the street.
At O. clock the piano warehouse, owned
by Sebastian Sohmer, was on fire from
cellar to roof. Fifteen minutes later the
roof fell in. The fire had, by that time,
assumed such enormous proportions that
the hospital in the rear of the warehouse
and fronting on Thirty-fourth street. was
in iminent danger There were fifty
eight patients in the building and when
they were aroused there was another
panic. Patients whose condition had
been very serious leaped from their beds
and ran towards the stairs The nurses
and employees of the hospital assured
them that there was no danger, and the
panic was temporarily quelled. One by
one the patients were carried from the
building until all of them had been re-
moved to a near by hotel, where they
were placed in beds. The flames COM
municated with the roof of the hospital
at $3.50 and in several minutes the upper
floor was belching forth huge waves or
smoke and fire. The firemen who were
inside the building were ordered to leave
the structure and several lines of hose
poured water on it from the elevated rail-
road tracks on Thirty-fourth street.
The tenement house at 209, from which
the tenants had been rescued by the po-
licemen, had been considered safe by the
firemen until S:S5, when a strong wind
blew the flames over 1t. In a short time
the roof caught the heat of the factory
fire and ten minutes afterward the in
terror was ablaze. Several streams of
water had no apparent effect, and in
short time the roof fell in.
The front wall of the fifth floor follow
ed short time afterward and the fire.
men turned their attention to the tene-
ment adjoining on the west. The roof of
the building at I'll fell in at 8:45 and car
red with it to the ground the four floors.
The piano warehouse WALL which was
almost solid and nearly 200 feet long and
so feet high, collapsed shortly afterward.
A part of it fell on the roof of the east
river hotel at 223, and damaged the build
i. ii-g to a great extent. The firemen pour
ed severa, 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 were under control at 10 o'clock,
but only after everything in them had
been destroyed. Nothing remained ex-
cept parts of the outer walls and blaz-
ing mass of lumber and wood work in the
interiors.
The building in which the fire started
was occupied on the first, second and
third floors by ]. F. Kaldenberg, man
ufacturer of pipes and smokers mate
rials The loss is about $4,000.
Pinare'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 $780, 900. The loss to the building
will amount to nearly 100000, partly cov-
cred by insurance.
The Sohmer piona warehouse is total
loss The loss to Sohmer in stock and
machinery win reach 100000 or 100000,
and the loss on the building $500, 600 The
tenement at 209 East Thirty-third street
was damaged to the extent Of $4,000. The
damage done to furniture and personal
property of the tenants is several thous-
and dollars.
The damage done to the Polytechnic
hospital will amount to at least $4,000.
There were thirty children among the pa
tents and all of them were carried out
In the arms of firemen.
The fires in all the buildings were under
control at II o'clock
Besides rendering homeless a hundred
people the fire has thrown out of work
nearly 800 employees of the factories and
the hospital.
The New York Police Insurance is
private institution. 1t was organized as
a medical college and hospital about fif-
teen years ago
Several persons were slightly injured
during the progress of the fire.
,rIIAr- TRANsU AFrAJP