The sun., 1900-10-31
THE new YORK HORROR
Wreckers Hard at Work on the Tar
rant Building Ruins.
FIREMEN STILL KEPT BUSY.
Police Give Ont II List of the Edifices
which Were Shattered by the
Awful Force of the
Explosions.

New York, Oct. 30.-As n result Of the
fearful explosion over Tarrant's drug
store at the corner of Warren and Green
wich streets, the vicinity is today scene
of ruin and desolation. 1t is yet impos
sible to estimate the number of lives lost
in the disaster.
The police department has made public
the following list of buildings destroyed
by the explosion and fire:
Nos $50 and 2S2 Greenwich street,
seven story brick, occupied by Tarrant &
CO., druggists.
No. 102 Warren street, four story
brick; Conklin q Co., commission mer-
chants.
No. 1O4 Warren street, four story
brick; w. Allen x Co., commission mer-
chants.
No. JOG Warren street. four story
brick; C. |. & NJ. Bingfelder commission
merchants.
No. 269 Washington street, two story
brick; Purpke Bros, commission mer-
chants.
No. 273 Washington street, four story
brick; A. Small & Co., commission mer-
chants.
No. 2T5 Washington street, four story
brick; Henry Hahn, commission mer-
chant.
No. % Warren street, two story brick;
barber shop and restaurant.
No. 81 Warren street. three story
brick; Eton, Smith & Wyman, coffee and
spice merchants.
No. 80 Warren street three story
brick; Fred Baar. saloon.
u'he Ninth avenue elevated road is in
bad shape, but trains are running on one
track.
Hard Work For Wreckers.
The task of clearing Warren, Green
wich and Washington streets of the rub
bish of buildings and digging down into
the debris ON the fire swept area for the
bodies of victims proceeds haltingly. The
hundreds of men employed by Superin-
tendent DoOner to look for bodies and
remove the mountains of stone, wood
and iron and shore up and make safe
gutted structures while the wreckers'
work goes on, can yet do little more than
attack the outskirts of the devastation
and watch the firemen who are playing
water on the still glowing pile from six
lines of hose, three of which extend
through Warren street to the North
river, being suspended over West street
and lying along the Fall River line pier.
Some curious sights We're among the
ruins. On Washington street an iron
safe lay clear out in the ear track, evi-
IDENTIFY hurled there from some upper
story as it fell. The owner of it, in his
grocer's apron, appeared with men and
a truck and carted it away. Another iron
safe, very large one, could be seen in
the corner Of the ruins Mt Warren and
Washington streets. II was too deeply
buried to be reached. All along Warren
street, in the cutters and down the car
tracks, cold coffee was running in a
brown stream. The fire, the tons of wa.
ter poured in and the coffee warehouse
at the south corner of Warren and
Washington streets explained the source
of this unusual current.
On Greenwich street the officers of the
Irving National bank and Mecklcm Bros,
also bankers, had piled the bankbooks
in an express wagon and were sending
them to n safer and dryer place. In the
middle of the street in front of the banl,
building lay II big iron boiler, hurled
there from nobody knew where, and be
side ii was one Of the iron pillars used
as interior supports of buildings. \
girdcr of the elevated track hung down
overhead, and beneath was the arch
with keystone still intact, of the front
door of the Tarrant building.
Arrests May he Made.
Several arrests are expected to take
place as result Of the appalling disas
ter.
Investigation has convinced several o1
the municipal authorities that the eXplo
sion was due to the unlawful storage o1
dangerous combustibles. 1t is settled il
the minds of experts on deadly explo
sives that neither alcohol nor benzint
could have wrought the wholesale de
struction. George Il. Murray, inspector
Of combustihles, says that the full guam
tity of alcohol, benzine, sulphuric acid
nitric acid, ether, phosphorus and colo
dion permitted by license to be stored ii
this particular drug establishment coult
not, If exploded simultaneously, hav,
done the awful mischief.
DIR. Nj. b. Feeney, chief inspector OF
the health department, says that tho
question of an explosion of benzine hav
ing producedssuch awful violence is ride
ulous. He adds that it is now a common
thing for physicians to prescribe nitro
glyccrin as Il heart stimulant and that tn,
explosion of 23 pounds of this stuff woul(
have done just what was done. Wheth
er in his opinion that quantity of the ex
plosive was stored in the Tarrant build
ing DR.. Feeney was unable to say.
A distinguished chemist says that til,
explosion was undoubtedly due to nitro
glycern. 1t has been the habit of al
wholesale druggists to store huge quan
titles of glycerin and also nitrate of stron
tia, the latter being used in the manufac
ture of red and blue fires, which are 81
prominent around Independence and elec
ton days.
This chemists theory is that the in
tense heat caused the glycerin carbons t,
burst, and the liquid in its flow came il
contact with the nitrate of strontia, caus
ing the explosion.