The age-herald., 1902-02-22
71st Regiment ArmOTy and Park Avenue Hotel
 Are Burning PROPERTY LOSS WILL BE
 AT LEAST $1OOO,OOO Blaze Started in Armory and in Few Minutes Ammunition Exploded, Blowing the Walls Outward.
 Panic Among Guests.

New York, February 22.-Fire that broke out early this morning in the armory of the Seventy-first regiment, New York National Guard. at Park ave- nue and Thirty third and Thirty-fourth street spread to the Park Avenue Hotel and at least forty lives were lost, while the damage is roughly estimated at over S1,OOO,OOO.
 One woman, a guest of the hotel, Jumped from the fifth story, and Is be- lleved to be fatally injured Four bodies have been taken out up to 3:3O this morning, but only one so far identified, said to be that of Colonel Pepper of Louisville, Ky.
 The Park Avenue Hotel will, 1t Is be- lieved, be a total loss.
 The Seventy-first regiment armory, a magnificent granite structure and one of the finest in the city was destroyed
 The car barns of the Metropolitan Street Railway. on an adjoining corner, were threatened lwithsdestructien,Sbat the good work of the fremen succeeded in saving them.
 The armory occupied an entire block and was occupied also by the Second Battery and the First Signal Corps.
 The fire was burning from window of the armory on the Thirty-fourth street side arl by the time the firemen ar rived the flames had completely en- veloped the building and appeared through the roof. Shortly after the cartridges and ammunition exploded. At 2 o'clock a thousand pounds of powder in the cellar exploded and the walls of the building were thrown out ward.
 By this tim" the people living in the neighborhood had been driven from the hotel and from their homes by the heat The guests of the Park avenue Hotel numbering about 800, were aroused as quickly as possible. but not without panic among the women and children The firemen poured eleven streams upon the side of the hotel nearmest the ar mory, but in spite of this the third fiool caught fire and the flames eating along the walls of the hotel spread to the roof The firemen ran ladders up on every side and were driven back by the dense volumes of smoke again and again.
 A little after 8 o'clock the four upper floors of the hotel were a mass of flames and the fire was spreading rapidly down through the structure. It was then ap- parent that the hotel was doomed.
 Notwithstanding the fact that every body in the hotel had ample time to get out, a large number of women were carried down the ladders by frem en until it was thought everybody had beer taken out
 Just at this time woman in her nigh clothes appeared se a window in the fifth floor and hst,+e warning coul6 reach her, flung herself headlong to a portico over the main entrance i is believed that she will die Two bodies were found on the fifth floor hY the fire men and two more in anothe. part o1 the building. It is feared several othe' bodies will be found ir other parts O, the building.
 At o'clock Chief Crokef, who had been inside the building said that h, believed a large number of dead were inside in the halls and corridors
 Among those who escaped were Bishop Ludden. Monsignor Kenny and a mum Der of Catholic priests from Syracuse N. Y. James NJ Payne of Connecticut and c. H. Stockwell of Troy, N. Y.