The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-04
FOUGHT FIRE TWELVE HOURS.
EXPLOSION SHAKES BUILDING AS
FIREMEN GAIN STREET.

vNItt ElhupthVh MI NJ Vtsss
Blazing Piano Factory ON West 3sth
Street Heavy Floors Check Spread
OF Flames Capt. HanIey's Risky Task.
Fire destroyed the piano factory of Jacob
Bros. at 5s7-54a West Thirty-ninth street.
early yesterday morning. The blaze
defied the efforts of the firemen for two
hours, and at n time threatened TO spread
among the thickly populated tenements
Of the block. The fire was not completely
e~xtinguished until last evening. 1t caused
damage estimated at a quarter of a million
dollars.
Waterman Hermann Kramer was
~patrolling thef factory as usual a little before
8 O'Clock. when as he passed through the
first floor a smell Of burning resin sent
him hurrying TO the cellar. When he
threw open the door leading own scorch-
ing draught famed up into his face. The
whole cellar was ablaze. Kramer rushed
out and rang the nearest fire alarm. When
he turned back there were already great
lights in the first floor windows.
Engines 81, 20 and n were soon buckled
up to the nearest hydrants. But before a
single stream could be turned on the build
ing the fire had gained the other floors.
taking the stairways at a jump. Great
caution was necessary in entering the
building. Battalion Chief Devanney led
the men in at the front. All about them
was blazing, with the clean fresh flame of
a fire just starting, before the smoke begins
to roll out. But suddenly a great wall of
smoke of a peculiar color and aromatic
smell came rolling out from the cellar.
Devanney ordered the men out. 1t was
not far to the door, but some new CON-
bustible had caught among the stores below
and started TO burn violently. There was
no telling whether it might not blow of
the lid Of the cellar-the smoking floor over
which the men hurried back. They reached
the door. Scarcely were they outside
when there came a blast that rocked the
street.
1t was followed by the ring of glass crash
ing down from all the windows of the
building. The explosion has blown the
window panes out. The fire leaped up
everywhere. The empty windows gave it
a draught. II was no longer possible to
enter the building.
Another alarm was promptly turned in.
1t brought Chief Croker, who took COM
mand and sent in still another alarm. This
brought all the available apparatus ia that
part of the city. The ~neiGhboring tene-
ments, mostly old brick ones, housed hum
dreds OF people.
The firemen were not taking any chance
Of letting the fire break loose. They took
station in from and rear Of the building
and along the adjacent roOf edges. A
water I'VE was halted in the middle of
the street, opposite the factory, and put
to work, though flames jumped half across
the gap from six stories Of windows. A
fireboat tied up 10 the foot OF the street
and pumped up river water to throw on
the fire.
Policemen ran through the corridors of
the next the factory and or
dered everybody out. A frightened crowd
poured into the street and swelled the
of tenement dwellers that the police
were constantly forcing further and further
back from the central commOtion. The
people opposite ran out, too, for the most
part in panic, when il grew too hot to stand
the windows. The blacksmith who has
a place across the way, a one story shack
a tar roof, was dousing sparks on
his housetop with buckets of Water that
his wife passed up from the tempering
The structure of the factory building
seems to nave helped save the neighbor-
rood. Ordinary flooring would have fiared
like paper. The factory floors, five inches
thick In the planking, as IL usual in factories
extra strong floors. burned and
put did not sag. As long a. they
held they kept the fire separate in zach
story.
The water was concentrated on the lower
About 40, after an hour and "a
half, it looked AZ il the men might enter
the blaze had slackened, although
II was still fierce above and in the cellar
below. Chief Croker directed Michael
Hanley, captain of Engine IA. TO go in and
try the floor to see whether IL would carry
the men.
1t looked like a risky experiment. Han
Icy went in without hesitation, but after he
gone out Of sight the crowd could not
help wondering whether the floor would
really hold. Now and then a flare Of red
hat lit the threads Of water playing up
aloft would light him up too, stepping
cautiously about among jets of smoke
forced through from the cellar below.
much was said while he was inside.
When he ~reappeared there was a general
cheer that bowed how intently people had
been watching.
Hanley reported that the floor was safe.
The hose was Immediately sent in and
the blaze in the rear OF he first
1oor. Floor after floor was put out in
he same a BY noon there remained
only the cellar. IL was so deep with water
hat the fremen could not enter. What
was not water was smoke. Yet there
fingered bits Of smouldering fire hat the
iremen had TO search out during half the
afternoon.
The contents Of the building are . total
oss.
Art students League Employee Held.