The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-09-06
FIRE In SUBWAY; HARLEMAGOG
HALF 4 BLOCK OF TUNNEL DAM
AGED BY SMOKE AND FLAMES.
Police Had to Invent Dynamite Scare
to Get the Crowd Back-Debrls in the
West l25th street Station Ignited
--Incendia rism Suspected-Hard Battle

Spirals OF smoke twisting out Of tn e
subway station at the southwest corner OF
l25th street and Lenox avenue caused peo-
pie passing about o'clock last night to
stop and wonder what was wrong under
ground. There wasn't any fame and there
was very little smoke at first, so nobody
gave the matter much attention.
But the smoke kept getting thicker and
thicker, and at length the smell OF burning
wood made it very apparent that there
was something radically wrong below.
People packed the block along l25th street
trying to discover what was burning FL
nally some one sent in a fire alarm and
somebody else ran for a policeman.
Hogan of the West l25th street station
came up on the run. He took a look at the
thick blue smoke pouring up and sent in
second alarm. 1t seemed then that
half of Harlem had heard that the subway
was on fire. The crowd increased so fast
that five minutes after Policeman Hogan
arrived the streets for blocks around the
corner were impossible.
Policemen Byrne, who had heard the
yells OF the crowd while he was in the lobby
of the Harlem Music Hall, and Ryan, who
was on post at Seventh avenue and IL 4th
street, tried to push the crowd back 30 that
the Fire Department could get its appar-
atus through the streets. They might as
well have tried to move mountain. Even
the reserves from the East 10th street
station could do nothing with the mass OF
people. Then the bluecoats tried strategy.
There's half a ton of dynamite down
there in the subway" yelled Hogan. Get
back, you people, for Gods sake, IL you
don't want to be blown into the hereafter"
Then the crowd retreated in panic. Sew
eral men were knocked down and pretty
badly bruised when the front ranks OF the
crowd turned in a rush for safety. But
the fremen had a chance to get Ia work.
Truck IA with Engine 80 and 81 were
the first to get to work. The men
smashed in the iron doors Of the station
with their axes. The blast Of flame
that shot out Of the binding smoke drove
them backward. 1t was impossible to
descend the stairs into the subway until
the hose could be got to work.
Two lines were rugged up hurriedly, and
streams shot down the stairs into the heart
of the red glare underground. The smoke
was so dense that the men at the hose had
to relieve each other in turns. Step by step
the firemen worked their way below, with
the water playing constantly on the flames.
the fire was conquered and the
volume Of smoke lessened.
In half an hour the fire was all out and
an investigation was possible. The police
and firemen discovered that workmen had
left boxes, pieces Of timber and odds and
ends used in construction, and that this
debris had become ignited in some manner.
1t might have been because Of defective
insulation in the wiring of the tunnel some
Of the flremen thought. There was a
suspicion in the minds of the policemen
On the ground that an incendiary had been
1t work, but they could find nothing that
Indicated that the debris had been set on
ire.
The inside of the subway for half block
vas blackened and begrimed. The tile
prick Of the walls was cracked and warped,
md the whole interior will have to be recon-
tructed, practically. An estimate Of the
iamage was difficult to obtain. The fire.
men thought it might reach 81 500.