The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-03-03
BUILDING GIVES
WAY AND men DIE
Perhaps q Score of Deaths
Result From Criminal
Negligence.

NEW YORK, March Fourteen
persons are believed to have been kill
ed, Of whom the bodies of only five
have been recovered, about a score
injured and several are missing,
through the collapse today of
the steel skeleton Of the Hotel Darling
ton, a thirteen-story apartment house
In course Of erection at 81 West Forty
sixth street.
The steel frame work had been erect
ed as far as the eleventh floor, and
the structure was swar1ning with iron
workers, masons and laborers, when,
without an instant's warning, the up
per 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 street, crushing in the
wall of the dining room and killing Mrs.
Ella Lacey Storrs, the wife of Frank
Storrs, a wealthy resident of Rye,
Westchester county, as she was sitting
at luncheon with the wife of the Rev.
Minot Savage, who escaped unhurt.
FREDERICK MORRILLS, foreman
Of the Roebling Construction company.
FARRELL S. FAGAN, derrfckman.
TWO UNIDENTIFIED MEN, ap-
parently laborers.
Among those missing is Frank J.
Allison, of the Allison Realty company,
the builders of the hotel, who is known
to have been in the building when it
fell. Efforts to recover the bodies Of
n 7ood I'm rriC
in the wreck were begun by the fire.
men Immediately. Owing to the enor-
nous mss Of metal wreckage, days
may elap. before all the bodies are
recovered.
The cause disaster generally
accepted is !. s3verloading of the
floors. F'orems flames Halpin, in
charge of the /. workers, stated that
there was a large quantity of cement
and other building material on the
fifth floor and that on the ninth floor
were eighty -four iron beams which
were to have been used in constructing
the remaining floors of the building.
That criminal carelessness is charge
able to somebody is shown by the fact
that the building department had plac-
ed repeated violations" against the
building, the last one being filed today
at the instance of Inspector Charles
more than two stories in advance of
the front walls and the floor beams
were not properly bolted and tied" In
spite of this and previous warnings
those responsible for the construction
of the building went ahead regardless
of consequences.
adjoining the collapsed building on
the west is the four story brownstone
residence of Harold Brown. Some of
I,<,a I7o cid of
the house and u. jve holes in the wall
and roof and dislodged a part of the
brownstone front, which was thrown
to the street. The occupants escaped
uninjured. On the east side is house
occupied by A. Walpole Cragie as a
school for boys. Some of the beams
struck the house, tearing off portion
of the roof Aand smashing holes in the
side walls.
Mrs. Storrs, whose husband is In
London, England, was sitting at lunch
con with Mrs. Savage when the crash
came and she and Meier, the waiter,
were instantly buried under the debris.
Mrs. Savage barely escaped being
struck. but her skirt was pinned to the
floor by a mass of fallen bricks. Mrs.
Storrs died within few minutes. The
waiter is believed to be fatally in
jured.
The Hotel Patterson was shaken to its
foundations and the rear fire escapes
on several stories were torn from their
fastenings and all the windows on
these floors were smashed. The occu-
pants Of these apartments hastily
quilted the building. Rev. Minot ].
Savage was i'll in his apartments In the
front Of the hotel at the time of the
collapse.
At II o'clock tonight the contractor
In charge Of the wrecking work said
that his men had discovered seven
bodies and that two were known to be
pinned under the wreckage on the
st side of the building.