The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-05
TROLLEY CARS FEED FLAMES.
FORTY-TWO. OF THEM CONSUMED
IN A WATER FRONT FIRE.
One Man Loses His Life I'm the Blaze That
Destroys the Old Car barn or the Dry.
Dock and East Broadway Road-Gas
Plant and Tenements in Danger.

The old Dry Dock, East Broadway and
Battery car barn fronting on the North
River, between Forty-second and Forty
third streets, was destroyed last night by
q fire which threatened the whole block
from the river to Eleventh avenue, Forty
two cars and seven sweepers of the Thirty
fourth street crosstown line were burned
and the whole damage done by the fire
was estimated by oren Root, Jr. general
manager Of the Metropolitan system, az
about $4,000. One man, presumably an
employee, was burned to death.
The fire was discovered about Z: 80 o'clock
by one of the car cleaners. 1t started in
a Forty-seoond street car, which stood
on the most westerly track, about 100 feet
back in the barn. 1t Is supposed that
something went wrong with the electric
heater. The blaze had been going for
perhaps ten minutes when one Of the
cleaners noticed the back of the barn light
ing up. He yelled and the employees
waiting around the barn, perhaps forty
conductors, motormen and cleaners, rushed
b"Nh' Nv a u Oil hDiuSV ullt Nho
flames were jumping up to the frame cell
ing Of the old building.
A fireman who was off duty for the day
happened to be passing. With Policeman
Ward he ran into the building, saw that
trouble was likely and started to organize Il
volunteer fire fighting force. Then it was
found that the fire apparatu s was out Of
order and that nothing could be done toward
fighting the blaze from the inside.
While they were sweating with the appa-
ratus in the barn the flames caught the
wooden ceiling full force and in ten or
fifteen minutes the barn was ablaze front
to back. The employees fled out OF tho
building. Ward and the fireman sent in
an alarm from the West Shore ferryhouse
across Twelfth avenue, and a few minutes
later when a battalion chief turned up with
Engine Company 2 he sent in a second
alarm. Chief Croker came in his automobile,
and he made it a third. Half an hour la ter
a fourth alarm went in.
The car barn made good food for fire.
1t was three stories high, was built in 1899
originally, has been partially destroyed
by fire twice and remodelled. A clock
tower was on the Forty-second street side.
OF late years the New York City Railway
has used it as a house for the Forty-second
street and Thirty-fourth street crosstown
cars. Not long ago the company fire.
PROCEED a section Of the building on the
Forty-second street side which was used
for offices, and that section was the only
part of the building that wasn't ruined.
The barn had a 22o foot frontage along
Twelfth avenue and about $50 foot frontage
along Forty-second and Forty-third
streets. Across Forty-second street on
the south side are the tanks and furnaces
of the Consolidated Gas Company. The
West Shore ~ferryhouse is at the foot Of
Forty-second street and the big buildings
once occupied by the Higgins Carpet Com
pany and now let by lofts to a number
of concerns is across Forty-third street
from the barn. In the same block with
the barn, along Forty-second street, Is q
row Of five story tenement houses, fifteen
or sixteen of them. For about two hours
the firemen weren't sure they could save
any Of these structures from going.
The reserves Of half a dozen police sta
tions. under Capt. DAILY Of the West Forty
seventh street station, got the people out
of the tenement houses before they at
tempted anything else. Smoke from the
burning barn was so thick that it filed
the houses all along the block and one
woman, Mbs, Louise Carpenter Of SAL West
Forty-secohs street, was overcome and
had to be Carried out. Then the reserves
cleared people out of the dangerous dis
trict and drew a Gordon around the fire.
The second floor gave way half an hour
after the fire started and dropped with a
crash. Immediately there was a beautiful
electrical display and streaks of green flame
shot through the red of the fire. Next
thing a terrific back draught swept through
the building and blew the clock out of the
Forty-second street tower. 1t went into
the street like a ton of lead and the firemen
jumped in a hurry.
Engine companies 10 and 81 were work.
ing on the fire backed against the wall OF
the Higgins Carpet Company building.
Deputy Fire Commissioner Hugh Bonner
was directing them, While Chief Croker
was at work on the other side of the barn.
The Deputy Commissioner looked at a
section of the Forty-third street wall and
saw an inch crack through the smoke and
glare. In a minute or two the crack Wild
med to a foot and Bonner let out a whoop,
one of his old time Indian whoops, he said
afterward. The fremen scurried to safety
just in time. Half the Forty-third street
u NiOppSh
A minute or so later Sergt. Foye of the
West Forty-seventh street station saw
another crack in the west wall. He warned
the firemen; who were half blinded by the
heat and smoke, and back they went just
in time to saw themselves. A section of
the wall went clear over the old sea wall
into the river.
Twenty firemen working in the rear OF
the barn suddenly saw a man appear at a
second floor window and wave his arms for
help. Until then it wasn't supposed that
there was anybody left in tho building.
The firemen got a net, stretched it and
shouted to the man to jump, Behind him
there was a solid wall of fire, and the fire.
men hadn't time 10 monkey with a lad
der. The man climbed part way out of
the window and then fell back. He was
too much weakened by the heat and smoke,
the flremen thought, to make a last effort
to save himself. The barn employees
couldn't tell who the man was, although
he must ave been one Of the workers
4, ro,,nI tho rlaaa Tbay u,nrn ,1sitiu,