The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-11-02
ANOTHER FIRE HORROR
is ADDED TO NEW YORK CITYS LONG
LIST OF DISASTERS
HOUSES WRECKED BY EXPLOSION

The Property Damage Immense-The
Loss OF Life Not Yet Known-The
v Story Chemical Works Build
inn of Tarrant d Co., Demolished
Other Buildings In the Neighbour
hood Completely wrecked-FIre Fol-
lowing the Wreck Adds to Horrors
New York, October 29.-The long list
of fire horrors that have occurred in
and around the city of New York, a
list that includes the Royal hotel fire,
the Park Place disaster, and the Wind
% and Hoboken fires, was added to to-
day by a fire and explosion that shook
the lower end of Manhattan like all
earthquake, hurled a seven story build
ing into the air and set fire TO two
blocks of buildings, with a loss of life
that only the efforts of the hundreds
of men who rushed to the work of dig
ging away the ruins as soon as the
fire vas extinguished will reveal. The
big building of Tarrant & Co., makers
of medicinal s~pecialties, standing at
The northwest corner of Greenwich
and Warren streets, and filled with
chemicals, o fire in some way that
may never be known, at about 12:15
o'clock this afternoon.
1t was sixteen minutes after noon
that a citizen rushed into the house of
fire engine No. 20, or Chambers street,
near Greenwich, and shouted that
TIA IRA MIS- drug hn1Icn -
fire. He had seer a volume of black
smoke coming from the third story
window. An alarm was turned in.
Soon afterwards second and third
alarms were turned in.
One fire company had just arrived
when a. terrific explosion occurred
which threw the entire engines crew
down the stairway. The foreman,
realizing the danger of their position,
rushed out of the building to the
streets. The explosion had filled the
street in front with a shower of fall
ing glass and small debris, which sent
h crowd, which was already gather
ed on the opposite sidewalks, f1eeting
for safety, and caused the horses
hitched to the engine to rear and try
to get away. Engineer Rocksberry
was christening the horses and Fire
man Brown, of the was
turning the safety valve Of the engine
when the explosion occurred and COW
cred them with a shower of glass. Both
were injured, as was another fireman
belonging to the
Captain Devanney, of the
ordered his crew back into the build
ing again. They were dragging the
line to the doorway for the second
time when another explosion. more
terrific than the first, came, and the
whole crew was hurled across Green
witch street. Devanney being so badly
injured that he was sent to a hospital.
In the meantime, the other engines
that had responded to the alarm had
collected n the firemen were busy
rescuing people from surrounding
buildings.
Firemen had already taken many
girls down the only fire escape upon
the building. and more persons had
been carried down the escapes of the
restaurant next door. and the buildings
adjoining upon Warren street. The
second explosion occurred about five
minuteS after.
From the of witnesses, tbs
building seemed to leap into the ali
N in a momen masses of brick wall
timberS and stone We're falling into the
streets. The force of the explosion
tore away the walls of the big com
mission store houses fronting on Wash
ingtOn street and caused them to col
lapse, falling all at once in a mass OF
timbers. boxes and barrels, from
which the flames, which burst Out
from the Turrant building like tht
belching Of a cannon, at once broke
forth.
Across Warren street to the opposite
buildings the flames leaped, setting
them all afire at once, the force of the
explosion demoliShing windows and al
T-nnI c%rIIafrrrar n harIf tho houses
In a moment Warren street wa:
checked up with a mass of debris and
the whole place was af1ame. Thu
great explosion was followed by hal
a dozen more scarcely less intense, ant
by a countless number of smallel
ones.
BY this time the fire apparatus wa;
arriving from every direction. Deput.
Chief Ahern came about two minutes
after the second series of explosions
and he at once ordered a fifth alarm
sent out, followed by a general call TO
ambulanceS The explosion n fir,
together had now assumed the proper
lions of a great catastrophe and it va
at first thought that hundreds of live;
had been lost. Throngs of peopl
We're rushing about in the nearb.
streets, many of them panic stricken
fleeing from the fire. They mingled il
the crowd that was rushing down from
Broadway to see what had p
Half an hour after the explosion tn
streets for blocks around the fire wer
crowded with fire apparatus with
score of a~mbulances, while hundred
of police were being rushed from a
the lower precincts of the city to forr
lines, and many priests from nearb
parishes were going here and there i
the smoke-obScured thoroughfares
seeking for injured who might nee
their aid. From the burning district
column of smoke was rising higher i
the air, mingled with flames that coul
not be controlled by hundreds c
streams thrown upon them.
The second explosion carried de
structiOn in every direction. That
did not cause a wholesale loss of lif
was due to the fact that almost tie
minutes warning, after the first CT
of fire-a cry that was real warnin
to people who knew the character @
the chemicals in the burning building
and fully five minutes occurred be
tween the first and minor explosion
which warned every one within hear
ing, and the second one. Just afte
the outbreak nf the fire from tho win