The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-24
A NEW HAvENER's ESCAPE.
George M. Haskells Account or th
 Park Avenue Hotel Fire.


 Park Avenue Hotel Fire
 Among the persons in the Park Ave- nue hotel in New York, when the hotei caught fire Friday night, was deorse M. Haskell, q commercial traVelef' Who resides at No. 32 Maple street, thls clty. MT. Haskell escaped without injury ana his account of the fire in the hotel, which resulted in such appalling JOSS ol life. is most interesting. In his opin- ion the persons who lost their lives might have escaped had they been Ia miiar with the layout or the oulluihs' He says:
 q retired about 12:40 o'clock Satur- day morning, and as nearly as can remember I was awakened py Irleiiu at 2:20 o'clock who told me that the 1 arn1ory was afire. I dressed ana went down to the office of the hotel. While in inc elevator I noticed little smoke in the elevator shaft, but thought u came from the fire across the street, as others who saw it also thought
 "The fire had been burning for some time and am sure that nearly all the 1 guests of the hotel were watching It, | in various states of dress, when II was first discovered that the hotel was l affre.
 | ssThere was considerable smoke about the roof of the hotel, but nothing was ! thought of it. Flames were discovered shooting from the cellar httle lh'ei and then the hotel people sent up general alarm to all the guests 1hls was about 2:45 o'clock.
 ''The alarm gave the guests plenty of time and I cannot see how so many should have lost their lives. The only exclamation is that they got rattled as small panic followed, and in the blinding smoke which soon filled the hotel. lost their way and suffocated.
 Had they kept their wits they coulc most certainly have escaped, for there are four large staircases two leading | out the rear and two toward the iron of the building, which offered eXcel' lent means of egress for more people than the hotel contained.
 .eWhy, my own actions prove tha' ot hers could have got out safely if they had remained calm.
 q was on the ground floor when th' alarm was given. ascended to ti' fifth floor, gathered all my effects ane went down one of the rear sta1rWays as the fire was in the front, to tht street. unhurt, though I suffered some from the smoke.
 ..Hcw the fire could have started Il the cellar is beyond comprehension, to' no firebrand or spark could get Tn there in any way. The proprietor, Fredericl Reed. expressed the opinion late yes terday morning that he believed 1t Wal of incendiary origin and several or th guests expressed a similar view, my self among them.
 s'I have stopped at the Park Avenu hotel for six or seven years, as 1t ha been considered fireproof in every par tje,llar. To look at the building iron the outside one would not think tha SD many lives had been lost, for hardly shows the effect of the fire.
 made a tour of the building after was all out. On the third floor it wa pretty well burned, and on the slXt the walls were somewhat charred. Al ter going all over it, 1t was hard to De lieve that sixteen people had lost thel lives but a short time before
 Mrs Josephine Pease, who former ' lived on Elm street, near orange, Wa the only New Haven person injured She was overcome by smoke and wa taken to Bellevue hospital. Mrs. Peas is an aunt of Mrs. Frank Trowhridge c this city. She had been living at tn hotel all winter, preparatory to goln on an extended trip abroad.
 MT. H. L. Camp of Middletown wa stopping in the Park Avenue hotel an his wife was in a hospital across tn street. MT. Camp telephoned that h escaped with some of his belonging and went his wife who was fecelV ing treatment. Preparations were mad to remove her, but 1t was not necessary MT. Camp Is a well-known and wealth banker of MiddletoWn
 R. w. Moorhead of this city wa among those who escaped in safety.