The daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1904-1905, 1904-03-03
Darlington Hotel ColIapses
ct New York With
Awful Results.
THIRTEEN STORIES HIGH
re Was Known to Be Unsafe, and
Warnings Had Been Given, but
We're Unheeded.
A Dozen Persons Were Killed, Many
Injured, and Some Are
Missing.

MISSING
New York, March 3.-Five persons
are known to have been killed, about
score injured and eight or ten, all of
whom are believed to be dead, are
missing through the collapse yesterday
of the steel skeleton of the hotel OAR
lington, a thirteen-story apartment
house in course of erection at 81 West
Forty-sixth street. The steel frame
work had been erected as far as the
eleventh floor and the structure was
swarming with iron-workerS, masOnS
and labOrerS, when, without an In
stant's warning the upper floor sagged
and collapsed and the whole structure
fell with a crash that was heard for
blocks, and shook all the buildings in
the vicinity. A portion of the steel
frame fell upon the rear of the Hotel
Patterson, on West Forty-seventh ST.,
crushing in the walls of the dining
room and killing Mrs. Ella Lacey
Storrs, the wife of Frank Storrs, a
wealthy resident of Rye, as she was
sitting at luncheon with the wife of
the Rev. DIR. Minot Savage, who es
capped unburt. The other dead, so far
as known, are Frederick MorrillS, fore
man of the Roebling Construction COM
pany and three unidentified men, APP
parently laborers.
The more seriously injured with one
exception were laborers on the build
ing. Among those missing is Frank
J. Allison OF the Allison Realty com
pany, the builders of the hotel, who is
known to have been in the building
when it fell. Efforts to recover the
bodies of the dead and rescue those
imprisoned in the wreck were begun
by the firemen Immediately after the
crash and the work of searching the
ruins was continued all night.
Adjoining the collapsed building on
the west is the four-story brown stone
residence of Harold Brown. Some of
the huge iron beams struck the side
of the house and stove holes in the
walls and roof and dislodged a part
of the brown stone front which was
thrown to the street. The occupants
escaped uninjured. On the east side
is a house occupied by A. Walpole
Cragie as a school for boys. The pu-
pills had gone home to luncheon a
few minutes before the crash occurred.
Some of the beams tsruck the house
tearing off portion of the roof and
smashing holes in the side walls.
Mrs. Storrs, whose husband is il
London, Eng, was sitting at luncheon
with Mrs. Savage when the crash came
and she and Meier, the waiter, were
instantly buried under the debris of
the roof and walls. Mrs. Savage bare
ly escaped being struck but her skirt
was pinned to the floor by a mass of
fallen bricks. Mrs. Storrs was breath
ing when extricated but died within
few minutes. The waiter is believed
to be fatally injured. The other occu-
pants of the dining room escaped I'M
hurt.
Owing to the enormous mass of met
al wreckage days may eIapse before all
the bodies are recovered.
The cause of the disaster generally
accepted is the overlooking of the
floors. Foreman James Halpin, in
charge of the iron workers, stated
that there was large quantity of ce-
ment and other building material on
the fifth floor. and that on the ninth
floor were eighty-three iron beams
which were to have been used in con-
structing the remaining floors of the
building.
That criminal carelessness is
chargeable to somebody is shown by
the fact that the building department
had placed repeated violations"
against the building, the last one be-
ing filed today at the instance of In
spector Charles French, because "the
side walls were more than two stories
in advance of the front walls, and the
floor beams were not properly bolted
and tied"
The Hotel Patterson was shaken to
its foundation and the rear fire es-
capes on several stories were torn
from their fastenings and all the win
dows on these floors were smashed.
The occupants of these apartments
hastily Quilted the building. The Rev.
Minot j. Savage was i'll in his apart
ments in the front of the hotel at the
time of the collapse.
At II o'clock last night the contrac-
tor in charge of the wreck work said
that his men had discovered seve
bodies and that two were known to
be pinned under the wreckage on the
east side of the building.
Prairie BURNING.