Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-02-13
MAY LIMIT sKYSCRApERS.
Baltimore Authorities Say They Were
 Immense Furnaces.

Since the Baltimore fire WAS stop ped the authorities of the city and the business men have been setting their minds at work to find out what meas ures the city would adopt to protect ltselr In the future from the possibil- Fly of another great fire. While it IS yet too early for much consldera- ton of this question, the people being too interested in what the ruins con- tain, it is destined to become a matter Of Che greatest importance later
 Judging from the sentiment that has been expressed thus far there is great probability that a law will be passed forbidding the construction of buildings over certain height Such law would mean that Baltimore would have no more skyscrapers. Hundreds of men. including officials of the city, who watched the fire de- vor block after block of their city, noted the fact that instead of imped- Ing the progress Of the flames. the skyscrapers which stood in line di- rectly across the path of the fire, only seemed to spread the blaze over wider area.
 The reason for this Y as that once 1gn1ted from the cellar to the topmost story, a skyscraper, according to care tul witnesses, seemed to act like gigantic chimney, showering burning brands over a tremendous area on ac- count of it's height.
 President Morgan of the city coun- Gil, said that he believed one of the, first acts Of the council would be to amend the building laws of the city and put limit on the sky line.
 1 Baltimore, said he. ''has looked heretofore to the tall buildings run ming up 16 stories as marking a good commercial spirit and has done noth ing to check the construction of this form of building. Although it was claimed for them that they would hinder rather than help a confagra- 1 tion, that wasn't the case. Every one expected that they would save the city. But 1t turned out that they weren't any barrier at all The draught in- side of them made them throw out pieces of burning furniture from the l top stories that fell blocks away. It literally rained fire from them. That's ] why We don't want any more of l them.''
 MT Morgan said that he personally was in favor of limiting the height of buildings in the future to 10 feet above the highest ladder of the fire department. This would restrict buildings to five or six stories. Oth- CTS of the council said they were go- ing to work for some such measure restricting the height of buildings to l at least eight stories.
 The Continental Trust building was sixteen stories high. Mir Burnham. the architect of the building, made an examination of that structure and found that the greater part of the walls was safe and could be easily re- built. Several of the other skvsnrap- CTS. notably the Equitable build ing, which had fourteen stories, stand men acing ruins to-day. The walls, inside of which the fire burned as in shell
 seemed to be held together only 1n enough places to keep them standing
 They will have to come down, and un- til they do the burned area for blocks will be a danger zone.
 Before the burned area is rebuilt
 probably several streets will be widened. including Fayette and
 Charles streets, two of the principal
 thoroughfares. ..# '