The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1901-08-26
BUOU DEMOLISHED.
Rear Wall Of the Theatre
Torn Down.

The Bijou Theatre was struck from the
rear in First street. The wind swept over
the roof, down the rear wall and then
took an upward course along the wall.
Much of the wind entered under the bui.d-
ing. The roof was first raised. Then the
upper half of the wall fell outward and
the lower half fell into the theatre on to
the stage. The upper half of the wall fell
almost as soon as the roof was raised
When the roof ratified down there was
nothing to support it and it crashed down
on the stage, piling itself up on the por-
tion of the wall that had fallen in. The
result was that a great hole was made in
the stage centre.
Wild ruin resulted where all before was
fairyland.
The members of "The Man Who
Dared" company escaped by a miracle.
They were to open the house for the sea-
son with the first performance of the
play Saturday night and for weeks had
been diligently rehearsing. The last re-
hearsal had been set for Saturday after
noon and shortly after midday the com
pany assembled on the stage in costume
to go through the final rehearsal before,
the initial performance in the evening.
During the violent rain and wind storm
that preceded the tornado the rehearsal
had gone merrily on. At $3.50 o'clock, or
Just before the rehearsal of the last act
was about to begin, Mr.. Howard Hall,
the leading man, suggested resting
SPELL The company stood about the stage
talking and listening to the terrible storm
MI, i,,eSt
saying that the mechanical effects on the
stage would never reach the grandeur of
the real storm such as was then filling
their ears when the tornado enveloped the
building and the roof began to move, the
wind to come up the cracks of the stage,
the scenery TO swing and sway. A ter
rible noise filled the whole house. Mohn
detected the sound of the ripping and
tearing of the roof above the racket and
fairly screamed
s'Run for your lives! The roof is fall
ingv'
Fright, worse than any stage fright,
seized the actors They stood with
blanched faces. rooted to the floor. Then
suddenly, with one accord, stampeded.
The women rushed into the dressing
footlights into the orchestra, and then
frightened cries mingled with the terrible
bowling of the storm until all were
drowned in the rumble of the falling
walls. 1t was just moments awful
clamor. One short sharp crash Then
followed dead silence that was broken
by the roar of two lions on the stage
in an iron cage. Their terror was heart
rending.
The lions were to have been used in
one of the scenes of the play. They were
in cage in the middle and to the rear of
the stage. When the alarm that the roof
was falling was sounded by Mohn, Man
agerHenry H. Winchell of the company
and Howard Hall attempted to pull the
lions cage out of danger, but they were
too late. Down on top of the cage came
the bricks and mortar and timbers. The
cage was battered out of shape and the
lions were cut and bruised, but not SER
iously injured. All around their cage
piled the debris so that only the top
showed.
1t was a fascinating picture. In the
middle of the ruins two solitary, frighten-
ed, roaring beasts, robbed of their
majesty and power, helpless, appealing to
man to rescue, them from their awful
predicament.
After the first fears for their personal
safety were allayed the hysterical mem
bers of the company raised new fancies
to keep themselves terrified.
serhe lions will get loose" they cried,
and they quaHed at each roar The actors
fed from the house into First street.
stumbling over the bricks and timbers
that had fallen all across the street and
rushed pell NELL through the crowd that
was constantly growing outside Their