The Penn's Grove record., 1900-11-02
SHOCK LIKE EARTHQUAKE
Fire Started in Drug House and Ex-
plosions Of Chemicals Wrecked
an Acre Of Buildings.

maue0 AT &l,bOOsUOO.
New York City (SpeciaD.-A terrific
explosion of chemicals in the wholesale
drug store of Tarrant & Co., on the
northwest corner of Warren and
Greenwich streets, totally wrecked
about twenty buildings and damaged
three score others more or less; made
more than thirty firms homeless, en-
tailed a property loss of about $780,
600, injured owe 200 persons. some of
them seriously, and killed over a score
of others. The loss Of life may be
finally determined when the ruins have
been searched.
Flames were seen breaking from the
third floor of the drug manufacturing
house of Tarrant & Co. some minutes
before the crash came. At ten minutes
after II o'clock a terrific explosion
in the Tarrant building threw the en-
tire front of the structure into the
street.
on the scene when the awful explosion
occurred. 1t threw the whole engine
crew down the stairway.
Captain Devanney, of the company,
ordered his crew back into the build
ing again. They were dragging the
line to the doorway for the second
time when a second explosion, more
terrific than the first, came, and the
whole crew was hurled across Green
witch street.
In the meantime the other engines
that had responded to the alarm had
collected, and 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 Homemade Restaurant, next door,
and the buildings adjoining upon War
rem street.
Reliable persons who witnessed The
second explosion declare they saw a
column of smoke and lame shoot 30C
feet into the air from the top of the
drug shop, and nearly all Of them as.
sert that they clearly saw bodies in the
fiery fountain.
The building seemed to leap into the
air, and in a moment masses of brick
wall, timbers and stone were falling
into the streets. The force of the *
plOsiOn tore away the walls of the big
commission store houses fronting Oh
Washington street and caused them te
falling all at once IN a mass
of tfmbers, boxes and barrels. from
which the flames, which burst Out
from the Tarrant building like the
belching of a cannon, at once broke
forth.
Across Warren street to the opposite
buildings the flames leaped, setting
them all on fire at once, the force OF
the explosion demolishing windows
and all wooden structures about the
houses. In a moment Warren street
was choked up with a mass of debris
and the whole place was afiame. The
great explosion was followed by hall
a dozen more, scarcely less intense
and by a countless number OF smaller
ones.
BY this time the fire apparatus wal
arriving from every direction. Dep
uty Chief Ahearn came ABBOTT tWt
minutes after the second series of eX
plosions, and he at once ordered {
fifth alarm sent out, followed by
general call for ambulances. The ex
plosion and fire together had row as
sumed the proportion Of a great catas
trophe. Throngs of people were rush
ing about in the nearby streets. man.
of them panic-stricken, fleeing from
the fire.
Half an hour after the explosion thu
streets for blocks around the fire wer'
crowded with fire apparatus with
! score of ambulances, while hundred
of police were being rushed from al
the lower precincts of the city to form
lines, and many priests from near-b.
parishes were going here and there II
the smoke-obscured thoroughfares
seeking for injured who might nae'
their aid.
The second explosion carried de
struction in every direction. Just afte
the outbreak of fire from the window
of the building a downtown boun'
train stopped at Warren street static.
of the Ninth Avenue Elevated road
1t passed on in time to escape the ex
| plosion. The explosion completed
carried away the station, and tn
mass of masonry that fell with
broke through the flooring and almos