The age-herald., 1902-01-28
Explosives in Rapid Transit Subway Touched Ofin Some
 Unknown Way
MURRAY HILL HOTEL
 MAY BE COMPLETE LOSS
Thousands of Windows Shattered By Flying Debris-MissiIe Carries Death to a Man Sitting In
 His Room.

New York. January 27.-The reserve supply of high explosives stored at the Park avenue shaft of the Rapid Transit tunnel. now in course of construction, blew up shortly after noon today. The giant blast killed six persons, injured hundred others and seriously damaged all the property reached by the flying debris and the vibration of the shock.
 The irregular square formed by the Murry Hill hotel on the west, the Man haitian Eye and Ear hospital and the Grand Onion hotel on the east and the Grand Central Railroad station on the north, was the scene of the explosion. The buildings named sustained the great est damage but the area affected extend ed for several blocks in the four direc- tions
 SITTING IN HIS ROOM.
 J. Roderick Robertson of Nelson, B. C., was killed by debris hurled with the force of artillery into his room at the Murry Hill hotel. He was general man. ager in Canada for the British Columbia Gold Fields Company, limited, and prominent citizen. He is said to have been quite wealthy.
 The sunken approach to the street rail- way tunnel used by the Madison avenue line cuts through Park avenue and the shaft for the Rapid Transit subway run beside it at the intersection of East Forty-tirst street. The street railway ap- breaches were housed over with super structure used for the operating plant of the Rapid Transit contractors.
 Temporary buildings for storage pur- poses were thrown up against the super structure at the mouth of the shaft and there the explosion occurred. It tore great gorge in the street, demolished the temporary buildings and part of the su- perstructure and sent q mass of earth. splintered timber and twisted iron high in the air. Much of it went battering against the front of the Murry Hill ho- tel 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 hospital,
 
 nearly as badly and had to be abandoned by the management.
 EVERY WINDOW SMASHED.
 The Grand Union hotel lost all of it's windows and glass partitions, and prac- tically every front window in the Grand Central Station was shattered. The great clocks on its front towers 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 occurred at the noon hour. Not more than hundred persons were in the main waiting room of the Grand Central Station, though at the southwest corner a number of men were lounging. Some of these were slightly injured by bits of glass Four ticket sellers were injured They stood in the pathway of this blast and were all cut about the head and arms with the flying slivers
 The clerical force in the executive of fees of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad which occupy the floors above the first. in the eastern wing of the depot, were thrown about by the shock. A. T. Turner, a record clerk In Superintendent Shepards office was thrown from his chair and his hands were badly lacerated.
 STUCK TO THEIR POSTS.
 In the next room to Turner's chief dis patcher G. H. Wilson and his four as- sistants who were directing the trains of the New Haven line having several hun dred trains to look out for, were scratched with flying glass but did not leave their chairs, even when they could not see their instruments because of the smoke. One man, Foster, who was watch ing single track strip in Connecticut. did not even get up to look at the ruins after the smoke cleared away.
 The station tonight presented somewhat the appearance of dismantled castle, the big windows only resembling jagged holes.
 General alarms brought Bremen, police reserves and every available ambulance to the district. and the Injured were speedily cared for. majority of the in- iured were treated on the spot and ann bulancc surgeons worked for an hour in the debris-strewn streets. Police lines were thrown across either end of Park avenue and across the intersectng streets. Several times the police cleared the street of people in front of the Mur-' ray Hill Hotel. Torrents of water from broken mains poured into the tunnel shaft while the wreckage was being cleared from the street railway subway, and it was feared that the street might cave in. PROBABLY A MARTYR.
 The cause of the explosion and the quantity of explosives that blew up are not definitely known. Several causes have been advanced One was that fire start ed near the powder room. and that Mas ter Mechanic William Tubbs lost his life in desperate attempt to quench it before it reached the deadly fuel. Another is that it started from sparks produced by stray current of electricity. A third placed the blame upon a blast in the tunnel. Still another gave a gas explosion from electrical contact in the trolly con duit in the street railway subway Sew cral men who were very close to the shaft escaped, while others hundreds of 
 (Contnued on Second Page)