The Forrest City times., 1902-01-31
P|LE OF DYNAMITE LETS GO.
Eight Persons Killed and a Hun. dred Others Injured Tn
 New York City.
LARGE BUILDINGS BADLY DAMAGED.
J. RodericIs Roberts, of Nelson, B. C.. Killed in His Room mt n Hotel Lamp Posts Knocked Down and Many Pedestrians Cut by Flying Glass.


 New York, Jan. 2s.-The reserve supply of high explosives stored at the Park Avenue shaft of the Rapid Transit tunnel. now in course of con- struction, blew up shortly after noon yesterday. The giant blast killed eight persons, injured hundred oth- CTS and seriously damaged all the property reached by the flying debris and the vibration of the shock.
 The irregular square formed by the Murray Hill hotel on the west, the Manhattan Eye and Ear hospital, and the Grand Union hotel on the east, and the Grand Central station on the north, was the scene of the explosion. The buildings named sus tained the greatest damage, but the area affected extended for several blocks in the four directions from the center.
 J. Roderick Robertson, of Nelson, B. C.. was killed by debris hurled with the force of artillery into his room at the Murray Hill hotel. He was general manager in Canada far the British Columbia Gold Fields Co, limited, and prominent citizen in the community where he lived. He was a Scetehman and leaves a widow and four children.
 The sunken approach to the street Avenue lines cuts through Park ave ue.and the shaft for the rapid transit subway was run down beside it at the intersection of East Forty-frst street The street railway approach was housed over with a superstruc- ture used for the operating plant of the rapid transit contractors. Tem. porary buildings for storage pur- poses were thrown up against the superstructure at the mouth of the shaft, and there the explosion oc- cured. It tore a great gorge in the street, demolished the temporary buildings, and part of the superstruc- ture, and sent mass of earth, splin- tered timber and twisted iron high in the air. Much of it went battering against the front of the Murray Hill hotel, and although the walls and main structure of that building stood the shock, nearly every room in the front of the house Was wrecked. The Manhattan Eye and Ear hos pital, on the east side of the avenue, fared nearly as bad and had to be abandoned by the management. The Grand Union hotel lost all of its win | dows and glass partitions, and prac- | tically every front window in the Grand Central station was shattered. The great clocks on it's front tow CTS were blown from their cases. | Thousands of windows, some of them seven blocks from the tunnel shaft, | fell in fragments. It was the shower of broken glass and falling debris that injured the greatest number. Fortunately, the explosion oc- cured at the noon hour. Not more that a hundred persons were in the main waiting room of the Grand Cen tral station. Some of these were slightly injured by bits of glass. Four ticket sellers were cut abous their heads and arms with the flying debris.
 The clerical force in the executive offices of the New York, New Haven G Hartford railroad, which occupies the floor above the first, in the east ern wing of the depot, were thrown about by the shock. Chief Dis patcher G. H. Wilson, and his fonr as- sistants, who were directing the trains of the New Haven line, having several hundred trains to look cat for, were scratched with fying glass, but did not leave their chairs, even when they could not see their instruments because of the smoke
 One man, Foster, who was watching a single track strip in Connecticut. did not even get up to look at tla ruins after the smoke cleared away. The station last night presente l somewhat the appearance of a dis mantled castle. with the big win dows only ragged holes.
 General alarms brought firemen, police reserves and every available ambulance to the district. A ma jor- ity of the injured were treated on the spot, and the white-coated ambulance surgeons worked for an hour in the debris-strewn street.
 Police lines were thrown across either end of Park avenue, and across the intersecting streets.
 The cause of the explosion, and the quantity of explosives that blew ID oro laG-stal,- l<0o..-u