The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-15

10 Nexroes -ArsOn suspected.
In an early morning fire yesterday in
the five story tenement at Q Christopher
street, which the firemen, police and cene-
ment jewellers think was OF incendiary
origin, Mrs. Ruth Tyson, aged 30 years,
jumped from a fifth story window to the
street. In her jump she struck a tin covered
ledge that projects from the second moor
and was killed instantly. Her mother, Mrs.
Eta De Lyons. was sufrOcated and died
shortly after she was carried down a ladder
to the street. Mrs. Tyson's sister, Mrs
Iottie Small, was taken to st. Vincents
Hospital overcome by smoke. but will
recover.
When Mrs. Tyson rebounded from the
ledge in her fall the upper part OF her o
landed in a life net held by the hremen.
Fireman william Russell Of Truck 8. who
was one of the men holding the net, was
struck on the shoulder by the woman's
legs and had his collarbone broken. Her
body then tumbled upon a dirt pile beside
the net. The three women are negroes.
Until last May the tenement had been
occupied entirely by whites. At that time
the owner, Adolph Altman, a real estate
man. who lives at 400 West l4ist street.
leased the building to an Italian named
Gallo OF 81 Macdougal street, who imme-
diately served dispossess notices on the
thirteen white families in the building.
The whites were told that the lessee wanted
TO turn the building into a negro tenement.
for the reason, so the dispossessed say,
that the negroes would pay the same rent
and would not demand 40 many CONVENE
ences and repairs. The dispossess notices
caused a great deal of i'll feeling not only
among the tenants but among the ~neighbors
who objected to the presence OF negroes
in the neighborhood.
just a week ago yesterday and almost
at the same huur-l:W A. M.-three young
men passing the tenement saw smoke COM
! ing OUT of the doorway and turned in an
alarm. The iremen found a pile OF old
trunks and other rubbish atiame in a bin
in the basement. which was smothered
with little damage. There is a bakery
in one OF the two stores on the ground floor,
but the baker does not keep his fires going
after midnight on Saturdays. The steam
heating plant was in operation then, az well
as yesterday, but the burning rubbish was
more thar fifty feet from the steam heating
boiler.
Yesterday morning a lodger in the build
ing named Howard Smith, q porter in the
Hotel Albert, known as Dr.. Smith because
he is stuyding medicine, came home from
work az 2 o'clock and found the hallway
filed with smoke. Smith ran o the
corner to the firehouse Of Engine rs. the
rear wall of which almost touches the rear
of the tenement, and told the fremen
Smith then returned TO be tenement TO
arouse the inmates, but found the smoke
too thick To enter.
From the street he yelled to Janitor
Prince johnson and awakened him. There
are no fire escapes on the front or rear OF
the building, although the authorities noti-
fled the owner in August last TO put them
up. BY climbing the fire escapes at the
sides of the building, however, the ~Janitor
managed TO awaken most Of the sleeping
negroes. They rowde to the windows,
crazy with terror.
MANY Of the jewellers, finding the stairway
choked with smoke, had climbed out on
the front window sills and more would have
Jumped to their death II the fTemen OF
Engine Is and Truck 8 had not shouted to
them not to jump. Some OF the tenants
complain that the firemen were slow in
getting on the job, but Battalion Chief
Stone, who says he drove on a gallop from
Thirteenth street and Fourth avenue IA
soon az the alarm was turned in, found
the men Of Truck 5 climbing the front
walls with extension and scaling ladders
when he arrived.
The men Of the De Lyons family on the
1 IOD nOOT game upNH tic WN NFNdPNF
at the side of the building as soon as they
were awakened by the shCLts of the janitor
and left their wives and their mother-in-law
who was = Ifocated, to shit for themselves.
Fireman Barney Morris was working his
way up the front of the building, by means
of extension and scaling ladders, when he
saw Mrs. Tyson come out on the window
sill as il to jump.
He shouted TO her 10 stay where abe was
and had climbed almost to the window
urhona uho atnOd WhaD the V0tlnO woman
either fell or jumped. Her body in falling
almost knocked Morris from his place on
the scaling ladder. Where she struck the
ledge, three floors below, the tin coping
was bent inward several inches Morris
continued his climb and when he entered
the top floor he found Mrs. Small lying on
the floor unconscious. Morris carried her
down the ladder and she was taken TO st.
Vinoent's by DIR. Eyanson and revived.
Mrs. De Lyons, the mother OF the other
two women, was discovered lying under a
couch after the flames had been subdued
and while the fremen were searching the
rooms for bodies. She was also carried
down the ladders and placed on the floor
OF Henning's bakery on the ground moor.
where she died in a few minutes.
The fire yesterday morning was in the
same basement bins that were ablaZe last
week. Although there was a great deal
Of smoke the fire was confined to the bins
and the floor and one wall Of the first corri-
dor. The loss il estimated by Battalion
! Chief Stone to be only $500. Tn iremen
say that the occupants Of the top floor,
where those that were killed lived. would
have been all right il they had remained
at the open windows till the basement fire
was ~extinEuished. Frederick /. King. a
retired lawyer, and his son, who ia a clerk
in the Post Office. the only white tenants
Of the building rename quietly in their
fat, two floors nearer the fire than the De
Lyon folks and were unframed.
The negroes we're g%arTulous with stories
Yesterday about the cause Of the fire. They
asserted that persons opposed to their pres
ence in the neighborhood were respon-
sible for the two firee within n week. As
sistant Fire Marshal McGough il investi-
eating tho stories and although he says
the fires are peculiar he has been unable
to get n clue that points positively to arson.
Yellow hued journalistic persons were
busy yesterday building romances about
the good looking young German widow,
Clara Luedtke. who runs a cigar store on
the ground floor. From her stylish dress
and well bred manne several had her all
framed up as a Countess and had planted
a fine family tree for her before evening.
When asked about the rumors Mrs. Luedtke
told THE SUN reporter that she was the
Duchess Of Dantzic and to let it go at
that.